


A Temptress and the Devil

by Mheeps



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drama, F/M, Fantasy, Fluff and Smut, Humor, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm a drama queen, Magic, No really I love drama, Not Beta Read, Not a Happy Story, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Romance, Smut, Violence, What Have I Done, pirate x assassin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 15:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6615985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mheeps/pseuds/Mheeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've told you before, love," The woman mumbled out. Surprisingly her voice shook slightly as she talked, but as quickly as the man caught that little detail, it was gone, and her voice was once again stone cold with little tint of playfulness. She turned back to look at him and the look in her eyes, was so distant, so impossibly cold, so painful. Suddenly, he wanted for the time to stop, for him to go back, never meet her, and remain what he has been before they met. A devil. But her sharp voice brought him back to reality. "You should have never trusted me." He wanted to reach for her, either to hold or to punish her for the damned words. Suddenly, he caught himself on a thought that he actually wanted to hurt her. And as suddenly, he understood he wanted himself dead for the thought. The woman however only smirked brightly, laughed at him and threw her arms in opposite direction from her body. "You are nothing to me, never been and never will. You made up that tale, Azazel, now is the time to open your damn eyes!" Then suddenly it was all quiet again. Quiet, after a loud slap cut off whatever the woman had to say. Then, the illusion came to an end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hair Color of Ash

**Author's Note:**

> Well... Yeah.  
> I am quite bad as a writer, so I am waiting for your fair critisism. Plus if anyone of you wants to help me and become a proofreader to this story, please go ahead and tell me! I will be only glad.  
> Any suggestions to the story can also be made, since this all started as a simple roleplay I would love to hear the ways readers can manipulate the story.

 

* * *

 

The Charming Rat. A place where all the scum from Veronica gathers and spends the last coins on mead and women. It is definitely one of the worst places you could ever be in, as said by the less troublesome civilians, and it is a heaven on Terra for all thugs and thieves, because there are no rules in that God forgotten place. Located in one of the most populated districts of the small island, it stands rotten to the core, stinking with the stench of alcohol and vomit. Yes, the city itself was not the best place in the world, filled with the worst layers of society, but it was something. Many just stayed there for the freedom it gave them. Others were just doing their dirty jobs.

Drunken men were already beginning to sing the songs about their great adventures. Sounds of banter, singing and dancing filled the air. Those who were unaccustomed to such life would have already fled the inn if they did not get drunk beforehand. But it was not that bad to those who did that daily. The inn itself, a wooden structure only two levels high, did not look awful to the eye. Soft, warm light that emitted from the glass windows created the atmosphere most would be amazed by. It called them in, invited them, like the chest with the lock on its side. The place was a mystery on the outside and the paddock for pigs on the inside.

Suddenly at one moment the music had stopped playing, the banter silenced and everything that was happening at the second before, seemed to come to a stop, like if the time itself has broken down. Men, who were about to fight just stood there idle, looking at the opened doorway with opened mouths and frowns on their faces. There stood a slender figure, wearing a black and white suit with a cowl atop the skull. But the most mysterious object of the stranger’s garment was the silver cross that had a crimson ruby at the middle of it. The silver material that the cross was made of eliminated light from the fireplace across the room. The stranger hands, so petite and graceful rose from the level of her hips to her cowl and carefully touched it. The cowl has fallen down a few inches revealing the ashen hair of the lady that she hid so nicely under the fabric.

People in the inn took a moment to accept the picture that they have seen, but then all returned to what they have been doing before. A bright and soft but restrained smile appeared on the plump lips of the woman as she began to make her way towards the innkeeper. Slow, graceful moves, seductive by their nature but without the excessive dirt the sluts around there used to have. Silently her tanned hands fell upon the counter before the owner of the place. The man, before busy with cleaning gadget that answered for pouring the drinks now looked kindly at the woman.

“What can I help you with, Sister?” The voice of the man broke out from his mouth as his body turned fully to face her. Not every day did he see a nun in the place like this? No matter how dirty and broken were people who lived in Veronica, they still believed in Maker so when meeting somebody who gave their life fully to him, they addressed them in the most polite way they could.

“A room would be perfect, but I do not want to become a burden knowing how many are in need of a room in this place.” The ashen hair fell to the side of her face as her head tilted to examine the room. Her eyes, navy blue crystals kindly looked at anyone who sought for her attention with their hungry stares.

“Don’t worry about those gnawers! They are too drunk. I am sure most of them ain’t gonna have that money to pay for the room after they spend it all on booze!”The man replied raising the volume of his voice to be heard above all other vocals in the room. His hand already began to roam around the counter in hopes to find a metal key that unlocks one of the rooms for rent on the floor above. Once his skin felt the cold of the metal he brought his hand to the counter and placed the key into the tender hand of the woman. A soft, kind smile appeared on her lips while her head bowed in gratitude. The women searched her bag for the purse to pay the man, but he had stopped her by placing his hand closer to the edge of the wooden counter.

“You may pay for the room tomorrow. I don’t wanna keep you in this stinking room any longer.” A loud chuckle escaped his mouth as his hands fell to his hips. His chest was funnily raising and falling from the laughter. “Last room on the left side, not gonna miss it.”

“May the Maker light your path, Brother.”The woman said lastly before turning around and begging to walk towards the stairs. The banter has not stopped and nearly nobody was paying attention to the odd appearance of the church sister in the inn. The lady looked around with her kind eyes catching a hungry stare of what seemed to be a wealthier and more dangerous man than any in the room. He sat idly one leg resting at the ankle on the middle of his thigh. His hands strongly held the thigh of some woman while she attempted to arouse him by opening a few buttons of his suit. That stare... That ugly, monstrous stare that animals had when they killed another of their prey, but not for the sake of survival. For the sake of killing and the pleasure they have got after it.

The woman with ashen hair smiled to him kindly. Her head bowed in respect but when it raised up again, her eyes had some flare in them. Her navy blue eyes were now inviting, hungry but she only allowed him the pleasure for a single moment before her body turned gracefully and began to descend up the stairs.

Slow steady steps. The sound of her heels hitting the dirty wooden floor beneath them echoed in the hallway. She followed the direction the innkeeper gave her and he was right that she would not miss that room. It was the only room that had a decent looking door with a lock still strong on the side of it. Plus it was the only door that did not block the sounds of moaning through it. A tender hand fell upon the brass handle and titled it around its core. The door flew open allowing the woman to enter into the room. It was not the best, scratch that, it was nearly not decent. The most basic bed with the mattress that was thinner than the width of the door to her room atop of it. A plain wooden chair and a table that seemed to be shaking from the littlest wind that entered the room through the holes in the window frame. The woman sighed, her shoulder lowered down allowing her bag to slide down without an obstacle and fall to the ground. As soon as it slammed into the floor her foot made a step towards the window commanding to her partner to follow. Her petite hands fell to the middle of the window where the lock which she would open in a matter of seconds was. The windows were old, rotten wood making screeching sounds as the window flew open slowly led by her hands. The slender frame of the woman now stood idly facing the light of the moon as it fell upon her ashen blonde hair.  For a moment it seemed that she froze as soon as the light touched her skin, but she only listened. The sounds of wind, the whirling sea, the banter from the hall downstairs, the moaning next door, and the slow, heavy footsteps in the hallway that seemed to get only closer each second.

The women smirked to self before she sensed a male entering the room behind her back. She turned around still holding her hand on the windowsill. The light of the moon made her skin almost shine made her hair seem lighter and her eyes an impossible shade of blue.

“Sister, huh?” The man said raising one of his eyebrows. The smell of mead quickly filled the room as the man appeared. “I haven’t slept with the nun before. The Maker will not forgive me for taking the innocence of one of his mistresses. Well, I always liked the Devil anyways.”

The woman said nothing. Her body turned around as she began to approach the man. He did the same, while trying to undress himself, but at his drunken state his attempt came out poor. The woman’s smile turned from kind to seductive as she pulled her hands around his neck. It took the man a moment for him to look up and lean into the rough kiss accompanied by one of his hands which then grasped her thigh not thinking about the outcome. The lady stopped the kiss which game the man a chance to fall down to her chest and begin to kiss at the open parts of it. Her eyes were directed on the door that closed a moment ago by other gust of wind. When she finally had enough of the drunk men trying to tear her clothes in parts she quickly wrapped her hand around his neck and with a swift hit of her heel to his knee she sent the male flying to the floor. A grunt escaped his mouth when his head touched the wooden plank and then another one when he understood that the woman now sat atop of him.

“What the fuck you doing, bitch?!”A few moments after the fall, when his senses began to come back the man yelled out sending his hands to grasp her shoulder. The woman quickly pulled out two daggers from the outer side of her thighs that were now freed from the long skirt and dug them deep into his wrists pinning them into the floor. The man cried out in pain feeling cold metal break through his flesh. How was such an innocent creature so strong? If only she was not somebody she looked to be.

“Don’t try to move, sweetheart.” She said. Her kind and sweet voice that she talked to the innkeeper with faded into the darkness of the night. She smiled, but with her own devilish, seductive smirk rather than the innocent church sister smile. As the man tried to move himself out of that position, the lady sighed and brought her hand to his cheek in a strong slap. “Why don’t you ever want to talk before I end your lives? Maybe we would come to a much more civilized conclusion.” A sarcastic tone to her voice and the dramatic emotions she wore on her pretty face seemed to calm down the man as he stopped moving. “You’ve crossed the path of a really, really bad man, Mr. Robert Samuel Green. I can of course let you go, since your sin is not that bad,” her body slowly began to lower to his chest as she rested her elbows right in the middle of his lung cage. The man had a spark of hope ignite in his eyes as she spoke and he began to nod violently with his eyes widened almost to the point where they would have fallen out if he tried to open them a millimeter more. “But I am afraid that would make me lose some easy money.” She smiled kindly to the sir between her legs. The man understood he needed to scream for help, and hope that somebody would care but he was too late when the medium sized curved blade dug deep into his skull right between his eyes. “It’s been a pleasure.” The woman whispered into the ear of a dead man and then the smile faded from her lips. Wiping the blood off her cheek the woman with ashen hair lifted herself from the dead body and without looking at it for a second turned around only to pick up her bag. In a quick jump she appeared on the windowsill and squatted looking out of the window in search of an escape plan. Luckily the city had wooden planks between each of the buildings in case of a carnival. The woman smirked, but before she would jump out of the window catching a plank with her tender hands and descending from the scene, she turned around and smiled at the body of a dead man, sending him the last air kiss.

The women with the ashen hair walked on the edge of the mountain swinging her hips. Her head was pointed towards the ground as she watched her leg balance out her body of the rock surface. The night was changed by the day, and the only objects around the woman were a forgotten white church standing at the very edge of the breakage and a lone willow tree which had lost its life a long time ago. It was calm. The sounds of the waves hitting the storm, eroding the coast, and the songs of the seagulls were the only objects of distraction in that moment. Ashen haired looked up from the ground when she noticed her standing at the front entrance of the church. Emotionless, she kicked the door with her leg swinging them open. The screech of the rotten wood attracted attention from a man who wore a white cape with the cowl. The woman resumed her walking slowly approaching the man.

“What did the church ever do to you?” The man asked. His hands were bound together in a hold behind his back. When the woman was halfway to him he turned his head revealing the face of an old man with a tattoo on his left cheek.

“It did nothing, I just like to,” A long pause. The woman took out her dagger and threw it at the man’s head. Somehow her swift action did not amaze the man as he simply dodged it by making a small step back. The woman smirked slightly and ran up to the man sending her knee to her stomach but he blocked it with his hand. “Hit things.” She finished her sentence before twisting her body and attempting to send an uppercut to the man’s face, but the man caught her hand and threw the women a meter off from him while using only one hand.

“If you used your power to the fullest, and actually listened to what I’ve been teaching you all these years, I would not be still standing, Ishtar.” The man with white hair spoke. His face had a frown on it as he was angered by the actions of his protégé. The man turned around and walked in thin line obviously still fuming with anger.

“If I’d listen to your commands, I would not be called the Devil, Fenrir.”The woman with the ashen hair spoke once more with her voice trembling as she tried to stand up. Thrown off to the side her body landed on of the benches of the church with a loud slam. “Anyways,” she continued soon as she swung her legs up in the air to get the momentum that will bring her body upwards. As soon as her body flipped and she landed back onto her heels she resumed her speech while she began to approach the man again, this time without attempting to end his life. “I finished that deal with Mr. Green, give me my money and I hope I’ll never see you again.” Her voice became sarcastic and her shoulders shrugged. The woman was certainly hoping that the man only came to accept the information about the succeeded mission, but she also knew that it was always more.

“Good.” Fenrir said shortly without even turning his back. That short answer made the woman suspicious again. Her navy blues squinted as if trying to find whatever the man has been hiding. She tried to go around him to see his face but then the man suddenly turned around with the frown still very clear on his face. “You have another mission assigned to you, Ishtar. This time a little more serious, so please listen carefully.”The woman was about to protest against the thing the man said but she was cut off as he began to talk. “This time you would not be killing your target.” This from the start seemed like the bad dream but this was just something out of this world. Never before had she needed the target to be alive, and not dead. The expression on her face was a mix of amaze and anger, but the man did not care as he continued to give her bad news. “And you will need to bring the man to the customer. Alive.” The man lastly and Ishtar took a step back her eyes widened. This was not good. This could have meant only one thing.

“And who… is the customer?” Ishtar’s eyes had shown her terror. She knew who the man was, but she sincerely hoped Fenrir would say the name of another man instead. Her heart was racing as if it was the end of the world. To her it was odd to feel such fear since she did not feel that way in many years. She forgot what fear was even though she lived on the edge of the abyss.

“Barclay.”

The fists of the woman clenched strongly together, her nails digging deep into the skin of her inner hand giving her sharp pain. But she did not care. That name rang in her ears as if she stepped on exploding mine and her hearing was buzzed. Her body became weak very suddenly and she would fall if only she was weak, but she stood there, shocked, scared. She feared that named, and that name followed her everywhere she went. If that name faded into the past it would return at the moments when she finally would start to forget it.

That dammed name. The name of the true Devil.

The woman with ashen hair walked on the street of the Veronica, her hair covered by her dark cowl. She walked slowly. Her mind seemed to be somewhere far away from her body. With each step she took her body momentarily lost its balance before another of her pair of feet would take position in front of its partner. How could that happen again? When she thought she ran far enough from that man he revived himself in her life rising from his tomb like a ghoul. How? She asked herself. Why? Damned Satan, bastard, killer. She cursed and cursed inside her mind like if it was easing her mind anyhow. She thought of running away again, but knew it would be pointless since he would still find her.

The streets were not crowded. The sun was at its highest peak so any normal human being with brain still in their heads would hide under the wooden roof of their house or a nearby tavern. But there were a few still roaming the streets of Belleza. The women with ashen hair walked slowly still in shock after what has been said in the church, she simply could not believe it and hoped that it was only a bad dream. Her head hung low as she watched her feet stumble on the ground. She walked in the dark pathways in between the buildings hiding like a rat from the sun. She did not pay attention to anything around her which seemed like an easy prey for one pesky thief. A girl with dark onyx hair tied in a knot at the back of her skull sat in shadows behind another house. Her cyan eyes shined in the dark imitating the cat. Her clothes were suitable for a thief. A mask on the half of her face, light armor and a little dagger resting at the belt along with a few other gadgets and a coin purse she probably have stolen already. Waiting for the right moment the girl watched Ishtar walk in a straight line. This is my time! She thought as the woman was at the point of the path where the area around her was wider than at any parts of it. A young girl with onyx hair quickly jumped to the side of the woman and pulled her hand to the coin purse. Her fingers wrapped around the knot of the purse and roughly pulled on it taking it off woman’s side. Yes! She thought that she succeeded and already began to run away as the voice broke the silence.

“I got enough shit happened today!” Ishtar yelled out as her hand fell on the dagger she hid on the side of her hip. In a quick motion of her hand she threw the dagger at the thief, making sure to avoid the areas that would anyhow threaten the life of the girl. The dagger was sent with enough force to cut through a few layers of her skin but not threaten her badly.

“Ouch!” The younger girl screamed out in pain, distracted from her escape by the sharp pain in her shoulder. Quickly her body was sent to the wall by Ishtar’s hand.

“Next time,” Ishtar said angrily while she took her purse back and pinned it to her hip. “Make sure you will be able to run away.”

“I was going to run away if only you woul—“

“What? If I wouldn’t catch you and take my money back?!” At that moment it seemed that she finally lost it. But seeing the girl that was under her hand she sighed. The onyx black hair of the girl now was down from the impact of Ishtar’s push. The dark hair revealed almost pearly white endings to them. Her cyan eyes did not have fear in them but rather had anger and eagerness to fight back. “You are not old enough to steal from me, darlin’.” She said lastly before her hand fell to her side and she went to pick up her favorite dagger from the ground.

“I am old enough! I am almost twenty one! I could’ve easily run with that money.” She said before she thought about that. The woman reacted so quickly to her attempting to run away with the money, and the girl did not consider herself slow. As soon as her shoulder was freed she followed the women only for the sake of her own interest on her.

“You are too young.” Ashen haired repeated without looking at the girl. She sighed once more and resumed her walk. The girl followed up without speaking. She just followed, examining the older woman. She had beautiful dark blue eyes, a tawny skin, but her hair was hidden under the dark cowl. The girl’s interest was getting bigger and bigger as she watched the cowl move from the little wind in the alley. Risking her own life, the pesky thief pulled out her hand and reached for the cowl. Her fingers were shaking, she was interested to the point where her interest would kill her quicker than Ishtar’s dagger and they clenched around the fabric and pulled it down in a quick motion. From the sudden move of the fabric, Ishtar’s hair was sent flying in different direction allowing the girl to observe. A wave of blonde, in some parts white curly hair appeared in the picture adding to the mystery of the woman. The girl gasped amazed by seeing such hair. It was odd in that area since most women had they hair in brown, red or black, sometimes blonde but never in such light shade. Ishtar understood what the girl did and quickly turned away, her anger returning. But then she relaxed and smiled softly.

 “And I wondered how much time it would take for your little head to explode with expectations.” A dry joke broke the sudden silence that appeared between the two. Ishtar leaned to the side placing her tender hand at her hip. Her face showed amusement, rare, true amusement. “You can go with me.” She said shortly. Her fingers found the edge of the fabric and pulled the cowl back on her head. The girl continued to stand there amazed, even more than before when she heard the warm invite of the woman. “I’m sure you wouldn’t say no to some food, and a warm cozy bed.” Ashen haired continued with a warm smile.

Seeing the woman with ashen hair continue walking, the girl pulled her chin up and crossed her arms standing behind the woman who seemed to be walking quite slowly.  She snorted sarcastically at the invite and turned her head to the wall to seem uninterested. “I am not that dumb to follow you to the place I do not know a thing about.”For a second, the woman looked back at the girl with a light smirk appearing on her face, but the moment ended when her head turned as she resumed her walk. Slightly amazed by such attitude the younger girl opened her mouth and stared at the descending woman. Her hands had fallen down to her thighs and clenched at her fists as the anger came upon her. “Hey! You! Stop treating me like a child, won’t you?!” The girl with cyan eyes chased up to the woman. Her hands grasped at the long sleeve and pulled, probably with too much force as the woman was forced to turn her body around. From such a sudden move the lady almost lost her balance so when she fell onto her heels and balanced her body on them her face turned from surprise to slight anger.“S-sorry.”Seeing an instant change of emotions on woman’s face the teen felt the cold sweat gather at her temples and an annoying shiver run up her spine. Her voice was shaking cowardly, foully showing her weaknesses. But to her surprise the woman did nothing but let out a tired sigh. Her jewel eyes closed for a moment to ease the tension that gathered in her mind and then they have opened again. The face of the lady revealed some wrinkles at the outer corners of her eyes, but they did not change the beauty of the woman by any means. They have only added to the mystery of who the lady was.

“I am not making you go,” She said with her voice warm, but without lacking a familiar tone to it. “So you don’t need to go.” Her wrist moved bringing the cloth of her sleeve out of the girl’s grip. Even though her body moved a slightest distance from the girl, her eyes were still locked on the cyan crystals. Unlike any other person who came across the young girl, the woman did not try to harm her, she did not even touch her against her will, she did not ask questions and demand the answers, but yet she seemed closer to the girl than anybody else in her life before that.

“I… I will… go,” The girl mumbled under her breath while her head pointed at the floor of the street. Her fingers clenched around her elbow nervously. It seemed as the woman already changed her decision about taking the girl with her, judged by a light chuckle that escaped her throat. That sound made the blood in the cheeks of the young girl burn making her face flush. She quickly raised her head and began to mumble, trying to stay cool while inside her head she was already beginning to cry. “f-forget it! I only said that I will go to make you feel like you actually succeeded in trying to invite me somewhere!” She scoffed turning her nose upwards in pride, crossing her arms at her chest and stressfully moving the tip of her foot on the stone surface.

“Right,” The lady said with an arched brow. It was perfectly clear that the girl actually wanted to come with her, but was hiding her emotions. It was normal to those who lived most of their life in agony, on streets with danger at the nape of their necks. The woman sighed and walked to the girl. Her head tilted to the side and there was a moment when the woman smiled. Unlike her usual confident and sometimes seductive smile the woman was smiling with a warm, almost motherly smile. In a quick motion of her hand, it wrapped around the wrist of the girl and without allowing the girl any time to think she turned around and resumed walking.  The girl first gasped at such a sudden move from the woman but then a few moments later, when she was sure that the woman would not look back at her, she smiled looking down at the her legs.

 

* * *

_So this is it. This is the first chapter._

_Wrote it in an evening... Note to self, do not ever do that again._


	2. Sisterhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the woman led the young girl towards her house, her fear grew stronger in her heart. What will she do? What will happen next? She thought, but the woman did not give any clues to what the future might tell.

 

Belleza was an island located in between of two most dangerous areas of the Sinnar Ocean, but nothing on the island showed how dangerous was it. The salt that was so densely imbued into the air seemed only stronger during the day filling the lungs of each and everyone living creature. Accompanying the cool sea breeze, in the darkness of the night that so suddenly fell upon the land, the moonlight has became one of few only sources of light on the dark streets. But even though it was dark, there was enough light to see how beautiful the city was under the cloak of night. The oil lamps on the cold stone walls radiated the warm glow that lightly fell on the ground and the sandstone buildings, unlike the grey moon that proudly levitated above the city, seducing each and everyone who dared to look at her face. Under her guidance the waves that which had a pearl white glimmer atop of them brushed against the shore of the beach, tempting to enter the cold water and go deeper and deeper each time the waves moved until their heads would be covered with the foam. But oddly enough, the water that usually would fume with anger dragging the ships into the trap and eating them alive, then seemed calm and soothing.

In the darkness of the empty streets the woman had walked, slowly drifting on the waves of the sea breeze that so calmly traveled across the land. Her navy eyes that seemed to dark before when they stood along with the younger girl in the alleyway, now, affected by the shimmering moonlight seemed almost aquatic. They were half closed, as if they have already begun to drift into the slumber that the woman wished for so desperately. With the same tiresome expression across her face, a young girl has walked alongside of the woman. Though on the outside the girl seemed to be calm, inside her cyan eyes there was worry. For her, a young kid who lived most of her life in shadows of the cold streets, running from trust and affection, however sweet this little dream that developed before her eyes was, it still seemed too sweet to be true, too surreal.

Her slender fingers clenched around the rim of hemline of her skirt, like they did so very often, scared of a single thought about what might happen if the woman _did_ lie, _did_ fake her kindness that was so unbelievable. What would happen? Her head slowly rose from feet very slowly tilting in a try to tumble out as to where on the whole Terrae were she. The panic rose within her in a matter of seconds when she found no change in the way the woman behaved. _What should I do?_ The teen thought as the first escape plans began to flash in her mind intuitively. _Run. Run as quick as you can, Lucy. Run!_ Suddenly the girl stopped. Her hands were shaking; her jaws clenched together, her teeth digging harshly into the tender flesh of her lower lip. That happened once, did it not? Somebody said those words to her once. Somebody very dear to the young girl, somebody she hated to remember in such a way.

_The woman with a bright, warm smile of her lips walked across the street. Her dark brown hair moving ever so slightly with the slight wind in a ponytail that rested on her shoulder. She moved slowly dancing to the music in the air, with the basket full of fruits in her arms. The blue dress hung from her shoulders lightly, moving with her dancing like if the fabric was made of air, at least so it seemed. Jumping around the fountain at the middle of the plaza, the woman attracted attention of the village people. They sung and clapped with wide smiles on their faces. Soon as the music stopped the woman bowed her head to the village people thanking them for their attention and slowly walked towards the outskirts of the town where her house was._

_The woman was only a few steps away from her front door when her head tilted slightly to a side. Her eyes squinted trying to understand who these figures were slowly approaching the house at the distance. Suddenly, she froze; her lips parting in a gasp as her body quickly moved to the door and pushed the handle with only one of her hands, another one still holding the basket._ _“_ _Lucy!_ _”_ _The woman screamed out to a young girl with her onyx hair pulled in a braid behind her back. The girl sat on a chair playing with a small spotted kitten on her lap. At the sudden call, her head tilted with a questioned look on her face._ _“_ _Lucy, listen to me, sweetie,_ _”_ _the woman said slowly looking back at the men who approached the house._ _“_ _You need to –_ _”_ _Woman_ _’_ _s words were cut down short as her face cringed. The basket that was resting in her arms fell crashing to the ground allowing apples to roll around the wooden floor. The girl screamed; her body sliding down from the stool as she began to run towards her mother._

_“_ _Mommy! Mommy, are you alright?!_ _”_ _Her high voice cutting through the silence only interrupted by sharp sobbing that escaped from her lips. Falling to her knees next to the woman, the girl crawled closer and grasped the hand of her mother pulling on the heavy limb desperately. The woman grunted trying to raise her head from the ground, but she was unable to speak before a cough cut through her throat allowing the blood to splatter on the floor. One of her hands fell to her side as the light blue dress was soaking in the bright red color._

_“_ _Run. Run as f-fast as you c-can,_ _”_ _The woman whispered. Her eyes closing painfully as the tears flashed in the tear ducts like white pearls rolling down her cheeks. Shaking, her hand raised from the girl_ _’_ _s touch to land on her cheek brushing the salty liquid off her skin._ _“_ _L-Lucy._ _”_ _A faint smile appeared on her lips as her eyelids covered the orbits of her eyes. The tender hand that rested on the girl_ _’_ _s cheek fell down slamming into the wooden floor._

A sudden yawn broke the silence that emerged between the two as if it was a knife cutting through the skin. Ishtar stopped all at once bringing the girl to surprise mixed with fear as she gasped. Thoughts of the past were erased from her mind quickly bringing her head up to eye the ash of her hair. The slender arms of the woman sprung upward from her body stretching out, allowing her back to arch imitating the cat that so often roamed the streets. Her navy eyes half closed, glistening like sapphires under the magic of the silver moon. With a deep sigh escaping her mouth the woman with ashen hair turned around to face the girl who stood behind her. The two stood on the slope of the hill somewhere at the outskirts of the town. There was nothing much to see around the area, except a tall forest covered in shadows day and night. A few grey locks of a woman escaped the coverage of her cowl and engaged themselves in a slow waltz with the cool breeze.

“We’re here.” The lady said shortly, her calm and quiet voice stopping the song of the wind that was subtly heard in the silence.  The girl stood surprised, not knowing of what was she talking about since there was nothing alike to a home, to a building even, only a dark forest growing out of the top of the hill. The green of the trees were so dense the image of the thicket behind them was almost invisible. The girl tilted her head to the side obviously trying to tell her that the woman went crazy, but Ishtar only smirked devilishly, her tender hand covered by a leather glove landed on a branch that hung from one of the trees over what looked like a long forgotten entrance that was not used for ages, decades even. The cobblestone path faded with dirt and dried leaves recumbent atop of the stones, plus the rich bushes deeply covered the continuation of it, so there were no ways to see inside of that mystery.

The girl has arched her brow slowly, her lips taking a shape of an “O” in amaze. It seemed like a dream before, but then as the mystery pulled her even deeper into its heart the girl had already stopped guessing of an ending. Her worries were washed away with another wave of the breeze as it pushed on her back forcing her to follow the woman who already descended into the thicket.  After a few moments when her hesitation grew weak in her mind, the girl walked after the woman with ashen hair still cautious about each step she took.

Several times the girl had to bow down low to protect the lily-white skin on her face from the branches that swung quick after the woman had moved them to clear the entrance. Angered that she had to do that the girl growled out, mumbling something to the woman before her eyes opened wide at the scenery that unfolded before her. It was something unreal, just like from a fairy tale her mother used to tell her when she was still alive.

The dark oaks, considered exotic to the island environment, of the deep green colors grew tall out of the ground, reaching up to the stars that roamed the midnight sky. Its lush leaves grouping together atop of the branches to battle the silver light from the moon that so desperately wanted to touch the cold grass beneath the trees. Growing tired of the weight on their limbs the trees often bowed closer to the ground creating a dome of green surrounding the whole area. It was magnificent, but at the same time, simple. It was all so clear, but the mystery still hung in the air seducing the young girl as she absorbed the images in her mind. The grass that was so deep with color was drastically different from that they have seen on the sun-kissed parts of the island where it was rather yellow and dead. Even though it was night, the forest did not seem to fall asleep like the town made of sandstone. Each bush, each tree, each spike that struck out of the ground was shining with life. The small transparent droplets of water hung from the very tops of the grass spikes, and when they fell, collapsing into the ground below they made a melody, a melody that was almost incoherent to those who would not stop and listen. These droplets sometimes fell on the surface of the water of the lake, or rather a river that so skillfully transformed into a lake atop of the hill, creating sounds alike to those that bells made during Christmas time.

With a soft smile so rare seen on the lips of the woman, Ishtar began to walk turning away from the girl that kept gasping at the images. At first the girl did not follow her, but not because of fear, but because of how surprised she was to see such magic with her own eyes. The fear gave up to the amaze that was glistening in her cyan eyes. She stood there accepting what she was seeing but then noticing how far the woman had walked from her she quickly raced to her side in hopes to see more of the magic. The pebble path under her feet stretched out far towards the top of the hill where a small wooden cabin stood with a mill on its side. The dome made of trees left an opening right next to the cabin radiating light that fell onto the wooden surface of its walls. The woman walked slowly, moving from side to side when her eyes shut down from fatigue. The girl seeing that quickly turned her eyes from the images around her and ran to the woman’s side catching her softly by her hand when Ishtar balanced on the edge of the path. That would bring her eyes to the girl as they would flash open surprised, her lips would curve in an apologetic smile and the girl would answer back with a roll of her eyes in their optics, attempting to look like if she did not care, hiding that smile that crept on her lips when the woman turned away to continue on the pebble path.

After a few more minutes have passed the couple has reached the wooden building. The older woman yawned loudly as she reached the door while her gloved in leather hand fell on the ornamented handle and pushed down forcing the door the imitate screaming as it struggled to open. The woman frowned and grunted bringing her head up and placing her hand on her forehead.

“I really have to have it fixed…” She sighed out walking a few steps backwards before she would quickly run up to the door sending it to flap open with her leg. As the wood slammed into the wall inside of the room, the young girl could swear it would crash as a loud noise echoed in the area around the house. Angered by such an action the girl tried to protest against it but then quickly shut, rolling her eyes after the woman had walked into the room without even inviting her in. But as the girl entered after the woman she coughed at the dust that danced waltz in the air. “Sorry about that,” Said the woman turning to the girl after she lit one of the candles on the table. “Haven’t been here in months, so it might be a _little_ dusty.” Her eyes were soft on the girl’s face as a light smile appeared on her lips. “What do you want to eat? I know I have little food here, but I’m sure some bread will do.”Walking deeper into a small room the woman opened the curtains that closed the window, and the silver light lit the room revealing a table and a few chairs in the middle of it. The woman had walked towards the chair and pulled on her bag opening it wide to bring a loaf of dark bread out on the table along with some apples and a bottle of cider that was half drank already.

“Ah…” The girl began slowly; her eyes looking down as she approached the table after the door behind her had closed. Her fingers nervously began to pick on each other as the distance between the girl and the woman who then already sat on the chair brining the bottle to her lips grew smaller each second. The girl sighed and finally sat down pulling the piece of the bread from the loaf and into her mouth. “Thanks…” She finished her sentence slowly with her cheeks expanding at the amount of bread she placed in her mouth. A she tried to eat it quicker from the nervousness; a piece of it uncomfortable filled her throat causing the girl to cough loudly, patting her chest with her hand to ease the tension.

“Come, come,” The woman said bringing the bottle closer to the girl’s hand that rested on the table. “You can relax now I’m not going to take away what I offered.” The woman smiled as the girl quickly tore the glass bottle out of woman’s hands and pulled it to her mouth spilling some to her clothes. “Don’t worry I’m not going to hurt you.”The woman slowly took an apple from the table and brought it to her mouth, taking a small bite and closing her eyes in satisfaction from a juicy fruit. Her arms crossed on her chest as her foot rose up to her knee and she leaned on the chair pushing it backwards so it balanced on the two legs.

The girl breathed quickly and deeply accepting all the air into her lungs. “Y-yeah, thanks. Sorry, it’s just odd to have somebody treating me nicely.”The girl smiled, allowing a soft chuckle to escape her mouth as she tilted her head. “Plus, your skills that you have shown me at the alleyway were not too… normal.” The girl smirked lightly while her knees pulled up to her chest plopping her feet to her chair. The woman only laughed at that opening her eyes and bringing the chair back on the ground to secure her safety from falling when the girl began to talk once more. “How do you even know how to…” She stopped trying to find her words when the woman leaned on the table with her elbows putting her chin on one of her hands.

“Pin people to walls in dark alleyways?” Sarcastically arching a brow, Ishtar said with her voice taking a more comedic tone. Her other hand that held an apple in it brought it to her lips once more but she did not take a bite when her head turned to the side showing the girl her profile as she winked lightly and resumed her speech. “It is only natural.” Her lips curved around the apple and she took a bite before speaking once more. But that time her voice lost its comedic tone and became suddenly serious, her eyes half closed and focused on falling leaves outside of the window. “You are right to fear me,” She talked slow with hesitation building up in her mind. “Not that I will hurt you, no… I wouldn’t be telling you that if I were to hurt you.” The girl looked at her misunderstanding as to what was she hinting at; however her head tilted to the side slowly plopping down on of her knees, her cyan eyes looking deep into woman’s eyes. Somehow that little gesture made the woman’s eyes slightly widen. Her elbows lowered down on the surface of the table as they reached for the bottle that was a little too far for her to reach as it was next to the girl. But seeing that the woman tried to reach the alcohol, the girl wrapped her hands around the glass container and pulled it to her chest hiding it behind her knees. “Alright, alright…” The women mumbled with a slight chuckle but then looked back into the window watching the leaves fall and touch the ground. She sighed lowering her head into her palm to cover her navy eyes. “I am an assassin.” She said shortly raising her gaze to the girl who did not seem too impressed by woman’s words.

“I understood that back in the alley, anything else that you are so secretive about?”The girl rolled her eyes taking a sip of cider from the bottle in her hands. The woman stared at her with widened eyes, her lower jaw falling down in a gasp. But then after a moment of sudden silence the woman lowered her head back into the palms of her head. The girl moved in her chair leaning closer to the woman, her hand reaching for the woman’s ashen hair. But her hand stopped in midair while the woman began to tremble. Suddenly the woman brought her head back as her voice echoed in the room in laughter. _Well, that was weird._ The girl thought arching a brow at the sudden change of emotions of the assassin before her eyes.

“Sorry, I don’t usually tell anyone that I don’t have to kill who I really am.” The woman said rubbing one hand through her hair that fell on her eye before. “Well, my name is Ishtar. But I am also known as a Bitch, Whore, Slut, Devil or any other names my victims call me before I slice their throats.” Ishtar winked lightly making sure the girl understood that her words were sarcastic. The girl only chuckled at the words that seemed to be said so innocent by a woman with a devilish smirk across her lips.

“I’m Lucinda. Lucinda Witmore.”

“Seems like both of our names are rare,” the woman laughed sincerely tilting her head to the side, a faint smile of her lips shining through the shadows of the room, but soon melting into it and leaving her lips in a thin line. Her eyes that illuminated soft light before now half closed examining the young girl who sat at the chair before her, hugging her legs with her slender arms. “Why?” The woman asked slowly, bringing one of her knees on the stool. The girl understood what was she asking about but decided to tilt her head away from the woman forcing a few strands of her charcoal hair to fall across her eyes. “Why are you alone?” But the words that the woman has pronounced completely shocked the girl as she quickly turned to look at the woman seeing a soft smile reappearing on her lips and a faint, transparent tear roll off her cheek. She expected her to ask why she was stealing from people or anything in that fashion, but the woman did not. It seemed as the woman had already known about the girl’s past. She read it in her cyan eyes. The sadness, the grief, the struggle, the pain, she knew it all just by looking at the girl. She just sat there, her pupils wide from the alcohol, her lips slightly trembling from the sudden sadness that overcame her, and that soft warmness that radiated from her smile, like the one her mother used to have. The smile that was sad and happy at the same time.

After a few moments when the words repeated over and over in her head like lyrics of a song the girl cringed in her face and it fell into her palms. The quiet of the room soon faded with the loud cries echoing from the walls. She did not know why she cried. It was so unusual for her to cry at someone’s presence, but she just could not help it after what the woman said. Something just came over her and the young woman who stood strong against the assassin in the alleyway was gone, and a small little girl appeared sobbing like if she just saw her mother die once more. Her shoulders were shaking; her whole body was shaking under the force of her tears when soft, tender hands fell onto her curved back and around the nape of her head. She girl gasped at first, her eyes widening at the sudden touch but then as she was pulled closer to the woman’s chest she felt some warmness closing in around her and her own hands raised to Ishtar’s waist and crossed around it as if it was a pillow. And the sobbing resumed with the girl shaking in the soft embrace of the woman, but this time a soft humming was heard through the sobs as the woman slowly caressed girl’s onyx hair on their full length. The woman smiled feeling how strong the girl clenched to her body; she smiled, understanding that the thin lines of liquid that rolled of her face were in fact tears. “You can stay with me, Lucy.” The woman said slowly whispering into the shadows with her voice soothing, without any sarcasm or irony in it. Just a calm, warm voice so much alike to that the mother of a girl had, “I promise, I will not leave you.”

The girl kept sobbing, but minutes after her tears had stopped, leaving her tremble under woman’s touch as she gasped for air. The woman stood close still caressing the girl with her hands, her lips pouting as she hummed a quiet melody to calm the girl. Lucy closed her eyes as she felt woman’s hands travel down to her cheek and swipe the tears away kindly. Ishtar touched her hands that were crossed behind her back still trying to pull her closer to the girl, and softly took them off her waist. The girl looked up at her scared that she was lying, scared that she will now leave her, tell her to go, and she will be alone once more, but the woman only turned around and sat in a squat her back to the girl. Her head turned around and she smiled softly once more. The girl whipped her tears from her cheeks and eyes and plopped her wet hands on woman’s shoulders, slowly sliding off the chair and onto her back. For a moment she thought that she would be too heavy for the woman to carry her as she tried to wobble off her back and stand on the ground herself, however her worries were quickly erased as the woman gracefully raised from the ground, holding the girl under her bottom so she would not fall, and walked into another room that was more bright that the one they sat in before. Looking around the girl noticed a bed standing at the middle of the room and nothing else except a few papers lying on the floor, crumbled into imperfect spheres and a few knives that stuck deeply into the wall of the room. Walking up to the bed, the woman turned around and lowered herself and the girl onto the mattress carefully. She turned around and smiled at the girl caressing her cheek once more and mumbling something soft as she heard a few more sobs escape her mouth, but then she stood up and was about to turn around to walk out of the room when the girl reached with her small fingers to the rim of Ishtar’s sleeve and pulled on it strongly forcing the woman to turn her head and look at her. The girl still had a few droplets nest at the corners of her eyes but her uncontrollable sobbing was stopped as she frowned. The woman chuckled, and at that innocent sound the girl blushed and frowned even more turning around and crawling under the thin blanket of the bed. She pulled her hands to her mouth and pressed them against her lips to cancel the sounds coming from her mouth. She closed her eyes, feeling them grow tired from all the tears that so suddenly appeared that night when she felt the mattress lower under the weight of the woman. Slowly her hands curved around the girl’s frame pulling her into the hug. Her lips faintly touched the forehead of the girl and she could feel the woman smile against her skin, so her arms raised and then fell back onto her waist, her head resting under woman’s breasts where her sharp hearing has found the source of slow beatings. The woman still hummed a quiet melody as the girl began to fall into slumber, seduced by the silver light of the moon that shined through the old glass and by the soothing temp of her new friend’s heart that she felt with her skin.

 

 _Argh, can somebody please close the blinds?_ The girl thought as she felt the annoying sun strike sharply at her closed eyes. Even through the skin she could feel the bright rays of the star shine through the window. Her hands roamed around in hopes to find the woman, but she was not there. The thought of the woman leaving scared her and Lucy quickly jumped on the bed looking around with her eyes still half closed. “Ishtar?” She mumbled worriedly sliding her feet off the edge of the mattress. But the woman did not answer to her calls; she was not in the room. Slowly, carefully the girl stood from the bed rubbing the back of her hand on her eyes to clear them from the sleep and walked out in the hallway that led to the small room they have talked in at night. She walked on the screeching floor slowly, watching each of her steps as she entered the empty room that now seemed to be clear of dust. Lucy bit on her lip seeing that there was nobody, but soon her expression of fear faded as she rolled her eyes and walked to the table. Her fingers clenched around the wooden chair and pulled it out quickly. She sat down and crossed her legs at her knees and pulled her elbows to the table surface placing her chin into her palms. “I will kill her. Argh,” The girl growled out suddenly allowing her forehead to hit the wood beneath her arms.

“Kill whom?” Suddenly a voice emitted from the corners of the room. The girl first became very happy at the thought that it was Ishtar but then understanding that the voice was in fact male, she frowned and quickly jumped off the chair picking it up as she went and stood in a guarding stance looking at the man who calmly leaned on the wall eating the apple. The man had light brown hair and a newly shaved face with a light smirk resting on his lips. As soon as he figured out that the girl did not feel too comfortable with him in the room he turned around on one of his legs and bowed like a gentleman. “Excuse me, m’lady.” He said winking to her. The man began to walk closer to the onyx haired girl but her hands only harder wrapped around the legs of the chair that she was holding. But as soon as the man was only an arm away from the girl a dagger flew in between the two hitting the wall to their side. Lucy relaxed her grip on the stool and looked to the side where she saw the dark cowl of the woman and her angry gaze shine from the shadows.

“Eric, don’t you dare even touch her with your dirty hands.” She said prepping another dagger with her fingers. “Or next time I’ll sent the blade a little lower than your waist.”She frowned and looked at the girl who held the wooden furniture. Suddenly Lucy allowed it to fall to the ground and hopped across the table running to Ishtar’s side and pointing at the man angrily.

“Who is this?!” She yelled out sharply, pouting her lips at the man who now stood calmly rubbing the back of his head. The man turned around to face the woman and smiled right after he would sigh and roll his eyes.

“Come on, Isha, you wouldn’t do it, would you?” He asked shortly bringing his hands to his sides.

“Want to test my tempter?”The woman raised her chin placing her bag on the floor next to the wall and crossing her arms at her chest. “He did not touch you, did he?” She addressed the young girl who stood at her side, and when she said “no” by turning her head the woman sighed. “Aright you are not a dead man, yet.” She said calmly to the man. “That is, Eric, he sometimes just hangs around, just think of him as a pesky rat.”The woman smirked gaining a smirk from the girl as well as she turned to the man and said slowly.

“He even looks like one.”

“Hey! I am the most handsome creature the Terra had seen in the history!” The man yelled out irritated. The only thing that ever angered the man was poor comments about his looks. “After all these years, Ishtar, all these people we have killed together and you still are so cold to me.” The man pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and sobbed loudly into the fabric which caused two women at the door to roll their eyes and later laugh. But then the man became all seriously plopping his hands on the table and leaning his weight on the wood below his palms. “I heard that Fenrir had sent you on a mission that has to deal with _that_ man.” The man said catching the attention of the ashen haired as she sighed, picking up the bag from the floor and walking to the table. Lucy eyed both of them interested as to what were they talking about, but eventually sighed and just walked to the chair and sat down crossing her arms at her chest when her lips began to pout again.

“Yeah, it’s true, who told you?” Ishtar asked after the bag has fallen down to the table. But the man only smiled awkwardly rubbing his temple with his index finger. “Why am I even asking?” the woman said with a sigh and slid onto the chair. “The old man thought I will not be able to do the job and sent you to come with me? No. Dragging you along is like dragging a bag of rocks tied to your feet.” She rolled her eyes annoyed.

“Don’t sweat it, I am not coming with you.” The man said leaning against the wall beside him. His head turned for a second to eye the dagger that stuck into the wall right next to his cheek and then his eyes traveled back up the woman’s frame and to her eyes. “What?” He asked at her raised eyebrow and a devilish smirk on her lips. “’Tis is the season when the best ale is served! I can’t miss that.” The man smiled to the woman and then to the younger girl. “Plus, I will be more than glad to take care of such a beautiful lady with such delicious curves.” The man eyed the onyx haired girl from her thighs to her breasts but that only caused the woman to send a dagger a few millimeters lower than his reproductive organ. Lucy frowned at that and almost threw a bottle they have emptied at the man but noticed the dagger in between his legs and smirked.

“She’s coming with me; I will not risk her staying here when you are around.” The woman hissed standing from the chair and walking into another room. The young girl followed her sending the man angry stares and crossing her arms. “Good luck with that “ale” you want to find.” The woman yelled from the room to make her voice hearable from the distance. “And for the sake of the Maker, don’t make any girls pregnant.” The woman only rolled her eyes but in reply heard a very loud laughing coming from the room the strange man stood in.

“Maker, help me!” He yelled out and soon the sound of the wooden door slamming into the walls was heard. The woman rolled her eyes once more and chuckled lightly. At the back of her head she sensed the girl standing next to the door.

“Am I really going with you on your mission?” She said holding a strand of white ends of her hair in her fingers while her eyes focused on her feet. The woman turned around and smirked softly. Her hands dug into the bag and found a soft fabric which her fingers clenched around skillfully and pulled it out without ripping it. The girl noticed the sudden movement and raised her eyes when the woman quickly threw the dress with leather armoring on it to her. She caught it right before it met her face and eyed the fabric looking up at the woman with her eyes happy and her lips curving in a really wide smile that almost reached her ears.

“Yes.”


	3. The Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After getting the information she has needed for her mission, Ishtar meets somebody she hasn't seen in years.

Slowly drifting on the waves, balancing it’s heavy weight atop of the dark water each second trying not to collapse under the seduction of the depth, the beautifully ornamented ship was moving slowly, cutting through the liquid skillfully, lazily approaching the large island before its figurehead. As they approached the people o the deck began to move quicker, running from one side of the vessel to another in a rush the captain kept yelling commands under his breath. The loud voices were heard everywhere on the ship and some would swear that the strict commands of the pirate captain might have been heard miles away. Especially it reached the depths of the ship, down at the storage room where two women sat close to the boxes behind them.

 A younger girl leaned against the wooden surface, swinging her head in sync to the waves that hit the outer part of the walls. A grunt escaping her mouth at several of times, when the bigger waves hit the sides of the ship rocking it like a big crib, but without the melodic songs of a woman and soft soothing movements of the furniture.  Sitting on one stop with one of her hands on the top of the boxes securing her body from movement, the girl wrapped her other arm around her waist while her thighs tightly held a rather large bucket in between them. After another move of the vessel the girl cringed in disgust as the wave of vomit dug through her lips and she bowed her head down into the bucket allowing the liquid to spill into the bucket. The sudden stench, who sat against the wall parallel to the girl, made the woman pull her hand to her face closing her nostrils together with her fingers, in hopes to cancel the scent from affecting her.

“Maker, you really hate the sea, don’t you?” The woman’s voice was calm after she had sighed deeply taking her hand off her nose and brushing it against her temple. Though all that time the woman had her eyes closed giving the girl a thought that she was sleeping, but she was only resting her eyes. A comment that sounded so rude made the girl swipe her mouth with her sleeve and quickly dart an angry stare to the woman in front of her.

“So you have been awake the whole time!” She yelled out before another shock wave travelled up her spine making her head to fall back down into the bucket and throw up once more. The woman sighed at that, but her emotionless face soon brightened up with a devilish smirk and raised eyebrows as she eyed the girl. That little change of her look made the girl growl once more when she raised her head up. After she stared at the woman for some time she just rolled her eyes and tried to calm her stomach to stop the vomit attacks. However, little time has passed before the girl opened her eyes and looked at the woman. “Are we there yet?” She asked slowly with her vocals showing the irritation that she felt. Ishtar only shook her head slowly, closing her eyes while her arms crossed on her chest as she felt a shiver run up her spine. A few seconds passed and the girl repeated her question. “Are we there yet?” But the woman held strong only shaking her head once more. The girl frowned and waited for some more before repeating her question again, and again and again, and how odd the end of their conversation was placed when the woman opened her eyes quickly darting a frown to the girl. And the woman almost yelled out another negative answer when the captain above the ceiling commanded his fellow slaves to throw the anchor down as they reached the harbor.

“Yes. We’re here.” The woman said with a smirk across her lips hearing the man and the girl only rolled her eyes once more rising from the floor to follow the woman who already managed to stand and walk towards the exit of the storage room.

As the ruthless rays of sunlight burned through her eyes Ishtar brought her gloved to her eyebrow and cringed in irritation while trying to block the light from warming her skin when she quickly pulled the fabric of her hood atop of her ashen hair. Oddly enough, under the enchant of the golden light given off by the sun, her hair, usually the color of steal mixed with the light shimmery blond of her natural hue, now looked almost silver, which of course brought the attention to her frame that calmly leaned against the wooden pole on the edge of the wharf. The men on the ship they have travelled now stood aside to the railing of the wooden deck and watched curiously as the younger woman angrily bantered with their captain.

“We have paid you enough for getting to this place! And now you’re asking ten more silvers!” Loud yelling of the young girl only brought the laughter out of the man. Pulling a dirty smirk on his face and showing most of his golden teeth the pirate caught the young girl by her hand and shook it roughly demanding the money off of her. After growling loudly, Lucinda turned to look at her companion which has done nothing thus far into the conversation, but that did not change as the woman only kept standing calmly.   
Fine! Five silvers!” The girl said while her hand rose to level the face of the pirate with a distinct number five shown with her fingers and soon, without taking anymore of her time, the pirate smiled widely and took off his hat, bowing.

“Aye that has been a pleasure to have you on my ship,” the man said before quickly taking the money out of her hand and running up the wooden plank that ran to the deck of the ship.

In a matter of seconds the man and his crew were gone, sailing off to the seas and the girl who stood angrily on the pier quickly picked up a full bag of provision she has stolen off the ship and began to walk after the woman who has already almost faded in the crowd.

“Do you always do that?!” Lucinda yelled after the woman when the distance between them was no less than a few steps. However her loud voice must have not reached the ashen haired as her head did not even twitch when Lucy addressed her. At least she thought it was that and her lips pouted at irritation but she has resumed to chase after the woman and finally caught up to her frame, slowly catching her breath after a run through a crowd and looking up in hopes to find any idea of where they were going in her eyes. But the woman only yawned and then turned right in front of the girl, slowly walking towards the tavern at the end of the wide street. Surprised at the sudden change of direction in her path the girl stared at the slender figure of the woman as she approached the old building. She sighed loudly and then smiled to herself shaking her head. “I should get used to this, should I?” She asked herself before her feet resumed their walk closing the distance between their owner and the woman.

But as they have approached the entrance of the tavern the woman had stopped, looking into the room with her face grimaced in a frown. Her hand rose up to the level of Lucinda’s eyes and commanded her to stay idle before she spoke.

“Go find the inn and buy us a room… Night is to come soon.” The woman spoke and though her voice rung through the silence outside of the inn, her eyes still kept focused on the insides of the room right behind the glass window that she has looked into. For a moment the girl stood with a questioning grimace on her face but then she nodded with a quiet hum and turned around to walk back onto the crowded alley.

As soon as the girl was gone from her view the woman turned back to the building and placed her hand on the wooden door while her lungs expanded when she took a deep breath before entering the room. The strong stench of alcohol duh through her nostrils as it usually happened in the taverns, but the woman just resumed her walk towards one of the tables in the farthest corners of the room where a man with a cowl alike to hers sat. Luckily to the alcoholic intoxication  of most in that room, there was not much attention paid to her, otherwise that would bring some trouble to her when the men saw the woman enter the tavern, not for pleasuring them.

She sat down on the wooden bench and plopped her elbows on the surface of the table. She did not speak or move, she just sat there with her eyes half closed, eyeing the men around her silently. Though the man who sat at her side sighed and raised the drink to his lips as she appeared.

“You have to find the man they call “the Keeper”. I don’t care how, but you have to ‘capture’ him and get him to Master, alive.” The man said quietly before he tipped the tankard, pouring the liquid into his mouth. “Alive, _Niraem_ ,” The name added with his voice deepening to the point where it sounded more like a growl of a bear, though that only brought a giggle out of the woman.

“Fenrir, I know what the word _alive_ means,” The woman said laughing sarcastically as her hands caught her head when it tipped. “You know I hate to be called that.” She said, but this time her voice becoming cold but calm referring to the little nickname the man pronounced. Though the man opened his mouth to say something, Ishtar has already risen from her seat and turned around walking to the black entrance of the tavern when there were less people standing around it.

She walked in the empty alleyways behind the buildings, her hips rocking from side to side as she roamed the pebble path; her arms rested across her chest, hugging around her body as the heat of the day faded away with the arrival of the silver night. As the time passed, from the soft movements the cowl atop of her head began to slide down her metallic hair, freeing them from their hideout to perform a dance with the invisible waves of the sea breeze. The woman walked, thinking of how she would do what she is asked for. Finding a man that would be most likely searched by not her alone, bringing him alive to the man she feared the most. _Well, this is promised to be quite the adventure._ The woman thought as a light smile curved her lips. But the soft look of that grimace did not last long as the woman stopped at one stop under the moonlight when a deep, raspy chuckle rung through her eardrums. Her eyes slightly widened and it seemed her brows cannot get any closer in a frown that they already were when she felt a warm heat right next to her earlobe, cutting through her tender skin uncomfortably. Yet the woman just stood idly for a moment before her hands reached for the dagger hidden on the inner side of her thigh, and she twirled in the air streaking her target with full force.

However, her petty attempt did not end well to her surprise, when the back of her head painfully hit the sandstone wall of the building along with both of her wrists. The man easily captured her body in his hands and squeezed one of her wrists of a hand that held the dagger making it fall to the ground. He stood, grinning at the woman from the wide rim of his hat that shadowed his gaze, but the woman did not need to see the full face of the man, since there were little able to do such a trick to her.

“Is this your thing?” She yelled out irritated after her head collapsed into the stone and especially angry when she took a glimpse on both her wrists. The man was taller than her, so her head had to bend at her neck to look at him, but the reduce the chance of her seeing his face before he wanted so, the man bowed down to level her face. “Pinning me against objects anytime we see each other?” She growled out, when her hands tried to wiggle out of his grip, but it was worthless so she stopped quickly. _I didn’t even notice him,_ the woman thought; _have to give him that, at least._

“That way you have fewer chances to kill me if you suddenly want to.” As his face lowered down to make his lips be only inches away from her lips, his deep voice still rug through her body, making her legs weaken, but she would not fall, not in his eyes at least. With a smirk reappearing on his lips, the man brought one hand to his hat and pushed the rim of it upwards freeing his eyes for her stare. Though there was a moment when the woman thought of pushing off the wall and jumping to the side away from the man, as soon as she tried to do so, his hands fell to the both sides of her head. “You know,” He whispered low into her ear after his body leaned closer to hers and she was pushed into the wall. “I hate chasing you.”

As soon as the woman felt the hot breathing on the side of her neck, her hand rose to his face and in a quick hit, pushed the man’s head away by his jaw. But then, oddly enough, the woman did not run. She only shifted slightly to the side where a tall wooden box was sitting and slid her body over it; crossing her arms on her chest and her knees atop of each other as she did so.

“That… was not nice, Temptress.” The man growled out angrily at first but then smirked and shook his head as if agreeing to the situation. Imitating the lady before his eyes, he brought his arms to his chest and crossed them together when his shoulder touched the wall that he leaned upon. “Have to say,” The man wore a crooked smile on his lips as he looked at the woman starting from the tips of her boots up her body, stopping at various points of her body before he reached her eyes. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” The woman rolled her eyes at the sweet words, flashing a devilish smirk of her own to the man in reply. “Let’s try not to be romantic here will we, honey?” Her brow arched as she watched the man chuckle after her request. “You’ve… improved.” The woman said shortly eyeing the man as he did before. “You’ve caught me off guard… became one of a few men who have a skill and bravery to do that.”

“I would have said that I could have done that before, but you know that would be a lie.” The man pushed off the wall approaching the woman once more. As soon as he was close enough to her, his hands fell atop of the box on each side of her hips and he stared into her navy eyes with his ambers while a crooked smirk rested across his lips. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to find you here so suddenly, and it would be very sad to think that you’re here _not_ for me,” he paused brining his face closer to hers but stopping right before their lips would touch. “But the fact that you were so strongly concentrated on something, probably dangerous, brings a little more hesitation to my mind.”

“Hmm,” The woman hummed lightly before her index finger rose and fell on his lower lip. “It’s just my work.”

“Let me guess,” Suddenly the man lost his smirk and frowned a little; one of his hands catching her finger and moving it away from his lips. “Doing the dirty job for the master of yours?” And he smirked once more, bringing her hand back to his lips and sweetly kissing her palm, with his eyes focused on her navy gaze.

“You make it sound as if I have a choice.” The woman rolled her eyes at his words and was about to slid down from the box, but his frame only fell closer to hers in a successful attempt to block her from leaving. Ishtar’s eyes locked on his as her teeth bit onto her lip intuitively. “What are _you_ doing here?” As she felt the heat building up in her body, the woman decided to change the subject to distract the man. She thought of her companion alone in the inn, probably wondering where is the woman and when is she finally coming, and she would of course excuse herself and leave, but the fiery eyes of the man caused something clench inside of her, building the hesitation each second that their eyes shared.

“Why are you so suddenly interested?” The man arched a brow, his hold on her hand disappearing, allowing it to fall back atop of woman’s breasts to accompany her second hand. Though seeing how her lips parted with the slight smirk visible in the corners of her mouth he loudly sighed and continued to speak, understanding that if she did say what she wanted, it would most likely be a salty comment. “Coming to see you won’t sound real in our situation, would it?” The man grinned devilishly in response to a slight chuckle of the woman after she has heard his comment. “I don’t know if I can tell you. You know what they say,” His head lowered down to the crook of her neck while his fingers gripped her hair and pulled it softly. “Never trust an assassin, especially the one that you cannot resist.”

“Well,” The woman smirked lightly; her eyes half closing as her voice hummed in a whisper. “Ah… And what do I need to do to know the reason you are here?” Her arms rose slowly, sliding atop of the sleeves of his coat until they have reached his shoulders, pulling their owner closer to the body of the man. There was no reason for her to know why the man was there, and she did not want to know it, but the magic of his eyes has finally tamed her thoughts and she obliged to the taint need inside of her mind and she just went with the flow, forgetting of anything around her.

Seduced by the thought of it or by the nearly unfelt touch of the woman through the fabric, the man freed his hand out of her hair and led it down her back, repeating after her curves tenderly before his hand fell to her rear roughly squeezing her ass while his other hand roamed atop of her thigh raising the rim of her coat involuntary. The woman lost her smirk as her neck stretched out to minimize the distance between their faces but stopped the second her warm lips touched his as Ishtar decided to tempt the man. Some would say that was a wrong thing to do, as the man emitted a loud sound alike to a growl of a beast and in a matter of seconds placed a hand to the nape of her head and roughly pushed her lips into a capture of his. But Ishtar did not mind that; and even though most women would fight back after such a rough treatment, she only leaned into his touch and moaned quietly as her temptation worked the way she thought it would. Held by her hands on his shoulders, the woman shifted on the box, getting her feet entwined together around his hips and the man must have gotten the idea when he grasped her rear with both his hand and pushed her body up easing her climb on him. The whole time their lips played a game of chase, as one grew the need to catch a breath but another did not want to stop the sweet play. But as their lips rather shared a game, the other parts of their bodies battled each other. His hands roaming her curves through the fabric that he desperately want to rip apart while her hands raised from his shoulders sliding soothingly on his skin until they reached his charcoal hair where they found their refuge.

When the kisses were no longer enough, the man escaped the dance of her lips and lowered his head to her neck, on his way tracing the edges of her jaw and ear with his lips until they have found a slowly beating pulse on her neck and alike to a vampire began to suck on the tender skin there, leaving selfish red marks as they lowered even more towards her collarbone. Feeling a tremble in her throat caused by a soft giggle, the man smirked against her skin and in a quick but calm motion pushed the woman back into the wall as he did when they reunited a few minutes ago. A sudden encounter with the stone wall made the woman cringe in her face but then relax as another sweet moan escaped her lips to join the silent night that fell upon the lone alleyway. Not yet ready to give up to the man and lose their game, Ishtar plopped a small kiss on his forehead before her hands crawled to the collar of his coat and pulled it to the sides allowing her a second to let her hands fall on his chest where she seductively traced his muscles, lowering down to his abs and later even lower until they were at the edge of his pants. But the woman only dug her fingers under the rim of his tunic and led her fingers to trace his muscles once once again, but this time without the thin fabric stopping her from giving him light scratches which aroused him even more.

Unable to control the need any longer the man groaned into the skin of her breasts that peaked out of the refuge of her clothes and his hands raised quickly from her hips to the her shoulders around where they formed roughly and dragged the fabric of her coat down, freeing her from the piece of clothing that gave her warmness. Along with the coat, the man accidentally held the thin layer of her tunic bringing it to its demise, along way breaking the seal of cotton laces that were built in the middle of her gown holding her breasts tight under the textile. When Ishtar felt the how the fabric that covered her skin before, in a second became no more than ragged piece of cloth beneath his legs she frowned at the man but his gaze did not stay on hers for long when his head fell closer to her chest landing his lips on the large scar that took a shape of a cross across the middle of her breasts. The woman rolled her eyes and tightened her hold on his hips possessively; whispering words into the air mockingly, “Pirates. I’m guessing you won’t pay for that?” from which after got a light chuckle from the man whose lips roamed the sun kissed skin of her breasts adding his own “scars” on her body in his game. Meanwhile the woman led her hands up his arms until they have reached the collar of his coat and went underneath it burying her hands under the heavy leather. Skillfully they moved to his shoulders and began to force the material to slide down his upper limbs to the ground where most of her clothes were already scattered, some to pieces.

After both of them were freed of their upper clothes (including the shirt that quickly followed the leather coat after it fell to the ground) the man raised his head and for a moment watched how the woman in his arms moaned as his magic worked, but then as her eyes opened giving off a shimmer of a sapphire the pirate could no longer just watch; his lips quickly found hers engaging them in a rough dance. Working his was down her bare back the man found the rim of her pants and cunningly freed the woman out of her leggings all while supporting her from falling. Working in sync with the man her hand, as if they already practiced that routine many times (which they did), easily reached for the hem of his pants and pulled them down just enough for her other hand to enfold around his length firmly.

They have not seen each other for years, and then it all felt so different, but at the same time so the same, when they were together once again. They shared that silence occasionally interrupted by the moaning and grunting; the silence in which they did not need any words, because words would only strengthen the temptation that was already unbearable. They did not seek for sweetness, did not ask for it. For both it was too unreal, too bizarre and they did not even dream of such because both liked to play the game in which there could be only one winner and the only way to win is to be rough and merciless. They liked to play it; the game of temptation, the game of fire where two demons were clashing for the ultimate name of the Devil.

Her fingers enveloped around his skin tightly as she squeezed his member with her hand. Feeling the capture of her soft skin the man groaned into the air roughly. His hand raised up her body inadvertently touching her sensitive nipples. It fell on the back on her head and pushed strongly forcing the woman to lean into another rough kiss where he bit her lip until it bled with crimson liquid. Her skin absorbed the silver moonlight that fell upon her and now with the addition of ruby on her lips her face looked as if it was made out of porcelain, but unlike all the dolls made of that fragile material, the woman had her imperfections in forms of scars and bruises that coated her body but did not ruin that masterpiece that she was. No longer able to withstand the thirst for pleasure, the woman moaned into his mouth commanding the man to resume their play, and he smirked. His hands worked their way back onto her waist and firmly squeezed her sides pulling her off the wall for a minor second in which she led his member into her opening. However the man did not rush to lower her down and only pushed her back into the wall trailing kisses down her neck while she was teased with the tip of his organ teasing her clitoris. Feeling pressure building insufferably strong inside her abdomen she moaned once more, but this time with a hint of a growl escaping from her lips. Taking that sound as another command the man only chuckled against her skin and in a quick motion, lowered the woman on his length roughly. When he roughly filled her, Ishtar almost screamed in surprise from the sudden pain that she felt, but then as he began to thrust into her slowly the pain was gone to be replaced with burning pleasure.

Her eyes rolled back in their orbits and her lips parted in a silenced moan. Instinctively her legs only strengthened their hold on his hips to keep the man close to her. Not long after he began to move her hands rose on his torso until they reached the nape of his head where her fingers clenched roughly, capturing his charcoal hair with the hint of grey in them from the silver light. It was her understanding of an embrace; a rough, unkind but warm and needy at the same time. Pulled closer to her body the man only brought one of his hands behind her back wrapping it around her waist while his other hand cupped her breast possessively. With time his thrusts picked up their speed and force with which the man pushed the woman into the wall. Though even when her back was firmly stuck to the wall it did not prevent her body slightly sliding up and down when the speed has increased. Her breasts did not lay idle anymore; they rather bounced up and down along with his movements. And unable to keep his stare off the picture that enfolded before his eyes the man pulled away from the woman even though her hands kept his hair in their capture trying to keep the man as close as possible. He watched the translucent sweat roll down from her neck to her collarbone and down to her breasts sometimes passing by too close to the areolas as if teasing the man, watched her body trembled when he slowed down his pace becoming enticed by her looks; watched how she breathed quickly and deeply making her rig cage expand, which naturally pushed her breasts up. And then when she opened her sapphire eyes half way and looked at the man with her natural seducement he lowered his face to her chest and wrapped his lips around her nipple sucking, oddly very softly. The woman arched her back intensifying the magic of his touch on her skin; her hands slid down his neck, his shoulder until they fell on his chest and attempted to push him away when the pleasure became too overwhelming but the man only caught one of her arms and brought it against the wall next to her head and she moaned even louder feeling a slight hint of pain.

When the man felt the sharp feeling in his abdomen he growled against her skin and resumed to quickly thrust into her body. The woman however clenched to his body as if it was a rope to catch when she jumped from one roof to another. Her nails dug into his skin when her hands roamed his shoulders seeking something to hold on onto. She trembled under his lips that still sucked on the sensitive skin of her chest, but the man, knowing that the pleasure has grown too strong for the woman, did not stop teasing her skin. Through her moans she frowned and growled throatily. Her hand quickly escaped his hold and fell on his cheek soundly. The man was forced to turn his head from the impact of her hand to his skin. “I-I h-hate you,” She mumbled under her growl with her lips trembling in another moan. Of course she was not telling the truth but in the heat of the moment when her body began to melt in his touch the pleasure that she was not able to set free made her feel anger and she had to spill it out. But the man only growled and then chuckled. His lips quickly found hers and captured them in a kiss while both of them wrapped their hands around each other’s body; hers around his neck and his around her waist. The man resumed his quick thrusts into the woman as he himself felt a stinging pain at his abdomen.

The silence of the night that cloaked the lone alleyway only minutes before now was filled with moans and grunts of both the man and the woman. Both feeling the peak of their pleasure very soon to come, began to add only more passion into their kisses. The man kept his hands firmly attached to the woman’s skin, that when for the small moments when his hands would brush against her side, the skin he was holding before would turn red and almost bruised. But the woman was not idle as well as the man with her nails leaving bright red ornaments on the skin of his back, only causing the man to thrust with more aggression, and emit sexy growls from his throat that she liked to feel when her lips were on his. But it all was quickly gone when her head was thrown back in another moan, louder than it was ever before during that night but only for a second as her voice broke off and the woman was left gasping for the oxygen when the climax has risen inside of her. Only by watching the woman in satisfaction, and feeling her quivering hold on his body the man felt himself on the edge. His hand rose to her neck and forced it back to allow his lips to capture hers in the fiery tango. A few more strong thrusts and sweet moans of the woman into his mouth and the man finally caught up to the woman feeling the huge waves of orgasm in his whole body. Ishtar wrapped her arms around his neck while her fingers caught the dark hair of the man clenching around them. And then her body relaxed in his embrace becoming like honey when the warm liquid filled her up.

The man was sitting on the floor against the wall, holding the woman with ashen hair in his embrace. The man was mostly dressed now, only lacking his coat and his hat that rested at the side, unlike the woman who only had her leggings along with her coat on since the man successfully destroyed her tunic. Her head rested under his chin while her other body fully leaned on his with the exception of her legs that hung from his lap. One of his hands lightly brushed her skin on her stomach but then raised to her chest and the woman almost slap his hand off but when she felt him avoiding her breasts and only trailing the outline of the cross scar across her chest she frowned surprised.

“What are you doing?” Never before did the man ask or even pay much attention to the mark on her chest, and when he did stare at it for too long she would only hint at her lifestyle and he would chuckle forgetting about it, or so it would seem that he would forget about it. But as soon as she asked her question the man slid his hand back down to her stomach and pulled her a little closer to him. At the nape of her head she could feel his hot sigh and she would sigh in reply relaxing in his touch once again. She closed her eyes but her lips parted emitting her nearly silent voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Huh?” The man sighed and whispered against her hair. “So the answer ‘I was searching for you these four years.’ Will not work?” His voice was low and deep as usual, but there was a note of tiredness in his vocals. The woman only pushed her elbow into his stomach making him wince at the sudden pain but then laugh when his hands grabbed her arms and pulled them to her chest, guarding his body from her unexplained attacks. “And what would I get for telling you?”

“You would not die, at least.” She mumbled with a sarcastic voice.

“And that’s it?” He repeated but then sighed with a laugh knowing that if he continued to make those comments she would only seduce him into telling her the truth like she did so very often. “I’m here because,” The man made pauses, teasing the woman in his arms, but she only turned in his arms and now sat pushing off his chest with her hands. “Some of my old friends pulled me into some “adventure” as they call it.” The man chuckled. His hands quickly found their way from her waist to her thighs.

“So it is an adventure? A group of pirates seeking some treasure?” She hummed throatily; her index finger brushing on the bare part of his chest in circular motions. The man caught her hand and brought it to his lips kissing her skin gently.

“It’s more than just a treasure.” Ishtar arched a brow not understanding what can be more than treasure for the pirate. The man smirked and his hand quickly wrapped around her bicep and pulled her closer to his chest so she would fall on it. “The legend of Arcana.” He spoke calmly looking at the woman almost lovingly but with the hint of sarcasm deep in his amber eyes. His hand roamed her back through the leather material of her coat that clenched so tightly to her skin. But the woman only rolled her eyes at that and allowed her cheek to touch his chest right above the spot where his heart should have been. And she heard almost inaudible beating of his heart that proved that the stories of the sea Devil as he was known were wrong and he did have a heart and was human. But she was the only person who knew that little secret.

“And how does a bedtime story of “Bride of the Maker” matters to that adventure you are having?” She asked quietly, but only got a warm laughter from the man as if she was saying something stupid.

“Well, if I were to retell you the whole legend you would fall asleep.” The woman smiled. “Our objective for now is to find the man called,” The man made a pause raising his head and looking into the dark sky above them trying to remember the name of the man they searched for. “Ah… yes… The Keeper,” Suddenly hearing that the woman jumped up, her hands quickly falling to his collar and pulling on it.

“What?!”


	4. A Foe

“What? Did I hear you right?”

  
That could not be happening. The woman sat idly atop of the man grasping him by the leather of his coat roughly. However, the man only stared back at her with arched brows. That could not be happening. Is this just another game of his that she joined without a thought of it or was it the game of that above them? Maker, if it is your doing, the woman thought; her face darkened quickly with her eyes burning with anger mixed with fear. The dark blue of her irises faded into nothingness. The warm crimson of her cheeks dying in an instant only to change with the greenish paleness of unpleasant surprise. However, unlike other woman whose hands would tremble in disbelief, her slender fingers strongly held the leather causing the knuckles of her hands to turn white. The words of the man were like hurricane in her mind that swirled in ornaments without a stop, repeating and repeating like a chant and she begged for the deep voice to silence but it kept repeating and repeating.

  
“Is something wrong? Does the name ‘Seeker’ ring the bell for you?” His hands wrapped around her wrists and squeezed the tense muscles lightly just to allow himself to escape from her grasp. The faint ambers rose from the grip of his fingers on her wrists to her eyes. If seconds ago there was a mix of anger with a slightest fear, after his voice rung through the darkness her eyes became empty, emotionless. Realization burned through her chest painfully and the woman closed her eyes tiredly. In an instant, her body relaxed with a sigh escaping her lungs. Her body hung in an arch above her, her wrists still captured by his hands but now she did not struggle to free herself out of his grasp. The silence loudly collapsed against the empty alleyway where two figures disrupted the image of loneliness of the street with their frames. Then the woman began to laugh quietly under her breath, tiredly, painfully. No matter how odd the situation has became the man just rested against the wall holding the woman. His eyes focused on the wall behind her where a few playful rays of moonlight danced through the clouds, as if he experienced such behavior from her a few times to get a calm stance at such moments. With a crooked smirk lightning her lips, but not fully, only the corners, the man drifted his gaze back at the woman who seemed to tremble in his grasp and before he could say how crazy she was, the woman opened her mouth and began to speak soundlessly.  
“Both of us have joined a dangerous game, captain,” A soft chuckle reflected from the cold walls of the alleyway. It was as if her worries faded along with the moon that cowardly ran behind the clouds and there was nothing left of her except a dim shimmer of the crystals in her irises.

  
“You don’t mean that…”

  
“Oh,” The woman began to rise from the capture of the man, dragging her wrists out of their cuffs when the man relaxed his grip. “I would only hope my thoughts were false,” She did not want to speak, since words would only pull them deeper into the darkness. Her jaw fell giving off a silent ache through her nerves. Moreover, the words became starved birds that sat unable to free their skinny bodies from the metal structure of their cage and spread their wings to fly. A few quiet sounds alike to those that drowning men make at their last moments, were the only things she could manage to say. She groaned, and growled, turning on one heel and angrily stomping to the site of the lacking pieces of her disguise that rested on one of the wooden boxes aside to the man. Without another attempt to word her thoughts, the woman quickly cloaked herself in the fabric, pulling the thin mask over her lips and a dark hood over her silver hair. Shaking, from the eruption of feelings that overwhelmed her at that moment, her fingers found the leather straps of her scabbard and skillfully tied them to her thigh where the sharp iron daggers would be easy to reach. “I believe we are enem—“

  
“Your words are sharper than your daggers, Ishtar,” The pirate had raised from the ground only to lean on the wall with his arms crossed against his chest. The silver hair turned quickly with a frown expecting the man to answer her with the same grimace that would reflect the growl of his voice but her eyes did not see a slightest anger in his. The fire that burned through the cornea of his ambers returned beginning to dig into her skin with his gaze, the crooked smirk now stretched across his lips mockingly as the woman eyed the sharp jaw of his searching for frustration building at placed where his teeth closed in on each other strongly. “Before you will call me your enemy,” He continued rolling his eyes at the sharp stare of the woman before placing his broad palms on the last of her daggers to keep her from walking away. “In matter of fact, I would rather call us rivals, not enemies, since you wouldn’t really fuck an enemy, would you?” As an answer to his comment, the woman only arched a brow and smirked lightly crossing her arms at her chest to imitate him. “Oh, come on, you could’ve humored me there.” The man growled loudly but then silenced himself with a sigh. “We are looking for the same man, so why should we even battle each other on finding him, if we can unite to complete the task twice as quicker? If only you don’t like to see who will come out as a winner in this one.”

  
“We cannot share the man,”

  
“We only need information, not the man himself.”

  
“I’m not so sure your friends would like the idea,” They were pirates. Moreover, pirates were known as men who did not like to cooperate. Especially with an assassin, she assumed. However, something in the fiery accents of his eyes tempted her to agree to his proposition without a second thought.

  
“They won’t. Not for one moment, I bet. But I’m not asking them.” That might have sounded pretentious of the man, but he carried the name of the Devil for a reason. Propping her hand on his chin with her fingers slightly curling into his short beard the woman guided his head a little closer to hers to have a better look at his expression. There was little emotion on his face but that present was one that often rested on his lips during their short conversation, like at times when he made a salty comment, or tried to overpower her natural seduction with the tainted look of his smirk.

  
“We may try that,” The volume of her voice suddenly dropped to the minimum causing her to whisper into his skin as he sank even closer to her face. “But I will not be guilty if my daggers suddenly slice some throats,” However dense the tension between them grew once more, the woman was growing quite tired of the game for the night so her body quickly leaned back just at the moment when his lips parted to lay a kiss on her neck. “They have a mind of their own,” She added the innocence to her voice before her body slid off the side of the box on which she had rested her back, and she began to walk, hiding her graceful frame deeper in the shadows.

  
The man turned to look at her descending back with a grudge on his face and his jaw dropped for a moment when he thought of saying goodbye, but then catching himself on the idea he smirked rather to himself when he understood that saying goodbyes was not in their manner. They parted multiple times before that night, but never did they bid one’s farewell. As if they knew that, they will meet again so there was no need of the sweet fairytale goodbyes. On the other hand, perhaps it was that both never really felt the attachment to each other, did not feel the need to give that they will meet again. Both knew that their lives were full of danger and promises simply did not work in the place where they were living, but they did not ask for more than what they had. They were not lovers; they were not friends and not even acquaintances. The most these two people could have been were players of their own game.

 

It was already late in the night when the door that served as the entrance to the rented room in the inn emitted an annoying creak. Leaving whatever she has been doing beforehand Lucinda jumped from the bed onto her feet. Her cyan eyes quickly focused on the slender frame of the woman who did not even raise her gaze at the girl when she entered the room with a loud sigh and began to find the buttons of her coat. As soon as one of the buttons slid out of the place and an image of naked skin flashed before Lucy’s eyes she sat back on the bed plopping one her chin atop of her palm.

  
“What happened with your clothes?”

  
“I’ve wandered across a beast.” The woman replied with another sigh flying out of her parted lips before a playful smirk appeared across her lips in a thin line. However, when she directed her gaze at the young girl the playfulness vanished only to change into an apologetic motherly smile that the girl answered with a low inaudible chuckle.

  
Ishtar walked across the room towards a low cabinet. It was sturdy, but old, decorated with deep cracks and rusty iron bolts that wonderfully kept it in place. To the woman’s surprise opening, one of the boxes and sliding it out was harder than she imagined. But as it gave up to the force of her grip it revealed a large blanket that was most likely washed a couple of months ago the last time. Luckily, Ishtar was not the person who cared about the cleanliness of an item as long as it still served its purpose. Therefore, as soon as her fingers clenched the fabric, another of her hands maneuvered with the buttons of her coat soon letting it touch the ground. The cold of the leather on her skin changed to a soft, soothing knit wool, sending tiny shivers up her spine.

  
“So what’s the name of that beast?” Ishtar turned around to that question with one of her eyebrows rising on her forehead. The young girl before her eyes already took off the access clothes that she wore and propped herself under the blanket on her bed, placing her hands in a lock behind her head as if she felt like a champion who just won a match. “You seem a little happier than you have been, so there is my conclusi—.”

  
“Did anybody tell you that your interest might get your nose chopped off?” The woman interrupted whatever the girl wanted to say with a graceful chuckle and a devilish grin. She wrapped herself into a cocoon and slowly walked towards the bed beside the wall opposite to one the girl sat at. Soundlessly her body fell onto the mattress of the bed and in a moment, she curled around the wool imitating a snake that was both beautiful and dangerous. “It was just… a sparring match.”

  
“Uh-huh, a sparring match… Where the main rule is to undress?” To that, Ishtar raised her head from the fabric and rolled her eyes only gaining a loud laughter from the girl. “So for how long do you know that ‘beast’? I will just call him that since you are not willing to tell me his name.” Both women chuckled. Lucinda lowered herself down onto the pillow. Her nose dug into the soft fabric and she has closed her eyes thinking of falling asleep. After a few seconds passed, her breathing became slower and her muscles relaxed. Ishtar looked at her with her own eyes half closed and smiled. However, as she thought of closing her navies completely Lucinda jumped up o the bed and looked at her companion over the room. “Or was he just a random stranger?” Her voice was very loud when she exclaimed that and it would seem the owners of the rooms on the either side of theirs would knock on the walls and curse in a few seconds. Ishtar jumped up on the bed as well as soon as the question got her attention.

  
“Maker, Lucinda!”

  
“What? I am just interested!”

  
Ishtar sighed loudly before falling back into her bed and wrapping herself around the blanket. “Azazel,” Her voice was low and nearly inaudible, but the younger girl hugged the pillow in between her arms and leaned on the mattress, listening carefully. “His name is Azazel. I’ve known him for five years. Not that we are friends,” she sighed. Her head rose from the coverage of the blanket with a roll of her eyes. “And we are definitely not lovers.” She answered Lucinda’s question before it was even asked and the girl grunted, falling on her back and hugging the pillow tighter. “We just meet and go, and nothing beside lust ever stays between us. Simple as that.” As her body fell back into the mattress, she sighed with satisfaction. The movement as easy as an arch of her back gave her the least pleasure due to her fatigue. “Tomorrow,” As she felt the warmth crawl across her muscles, her voice changed to something alike to a purr of a cat rather than a human speech. “We will see him… and his…‘Friends’. They have information on the Keeper and we might take it from them.”

  
The young girl sighed as well. “So… in other words…we will use them? Then vanish without a trace to follow? Is that what you are planning?” The woman did not even turn around to face her, she just hummed quietly and Lucinda took that answer as a distinct ‘yes’. She sighed and grunted in discontent before he body quickly turned to the wall so the only thing Ishtar saw was Lucinda’s back. “And I thought this could be a love story…” She mumbled silently, rather to herself than to the woman.

  
“You have chosen a wrong continent for such things as love.” The woman replied. Her body turned to the window on the wall and she stared off into the distance that the sky owned, watching how the clouds hid the silver moon with their bodies. “Get some sleep,” And then her eyes shut down as the tip of her nose dug into the wool of the blanket. “Pirates won’t be happy to see us tomorrow. Better be ready.” She did not hear an answer or even a distant humming in reply; instead, her ears caught the sounds of quiet snoring that indicated that the girl was fast asleep. Later the woman sighed once again when she noticed that the silence filled the room, and there were no sounds but the voices on the outside of the walls. Soon, soothed by the low inaudible whispers of shadows the woman began to fall into a slumber herself.

 

“So where are we going again?”

  
Two silhouettes roamed the streets that were still dark from the night. Their bodies, cloaked in black robes, were nearly invisible to the normal eye, perhaps because both were quite skillful in stealth. They moved slowly, walking in the shadows between buildings, in the alleys where nobody else would set foot on, creeping gracefully just like cats who were guided by an instinct rather than knowledge, avoiding the falling light from the golden sunrise as if they were afraid that it would burn them.

  
At first, Ishtar did not hear the question of her companion, simple because her gaze focused on the bright crimson gem that sat in the middle of her palm. Whenever she looked at it, it felt as if it was calling out for her, whispered into her ears on language so familiar to that she spoke but yet different. The silver touch of the cross that held the gem seemed to burn through her skin, but not in a painful way. It felt as if it was melting slowly into her body and her own skin was welcoming it to enter. And for a moment the woman thought it did slightly move into her palm when she was brought back to reality by the young girl. As the tender hand fell on her shoulder, Ishtar felt the sharp sting of pain travel throughout her whole arm starting from the place where the pendant rested.

  
“W-What’s wrong?” Ishtar heard Lucinda’s voice but she sting was so strong that it shocked her completely. The reason that she reacted that way was not pain. No. She was used to pain, but things as such never happened to her ever since she stole that stone. It is true that she felt weird whenever she held it, but there was never anything alike to pain.

  
“I’m fine,” After a few moments her body relaxed once more. When it felt most comfortable, her hand clenched to form a first and then relaxed. It was weird. When the pain appeared, it felt as if her hand was cut with a knife heated above the fire. However, when she looked at her palm when it opened, there was not even a spot left from the stone. She sighed loudly and then raised her head from the sight of her hand and smiled lightly. “I will need a drink later once we are finished with this.” The girl chuckled lightly and resumed walking through the valley. “We’re going to see people who would potentially help us with the mission.” For a second, one eyebrow raised on Lucinda’s forehead and her lips quirked in a slight smirk, but then Ishtar rolled her eyes and sighed indicating that it was better she did not ask her. “They might or might not consider us— me, more of a threat than a helper. So we don’t quite know if the weather would be nice.”

  
“What was that? Was that an old person remark?”

  
“Ouch, Lucy… That burnt right through my soul.”

  
“The non-existing one?” The girl smirked when she turned on her heel to face the woman who rose her body up onto the low roof of one of the buildings.

  
“Ha-ha that is such a funny joke. Look I am laughing so hard.” The woman wore a stone cold face before rolling her eyes once more. “Come on, we’re at the place.” In less than a few seconds, the woman climbed on the side of the wall until she has reached the window. Holding herself against one of the beams that held the upper roof, she leaned onto the frame of the window and dug her hand in the pocket located on the back of her thigh. She dragged out a lock pick and brought it to the intersection of two parts of the window. There was a lock on the other side of the wood but it would bring no trouble to the assassin to open it.

 

  
With quick, skillful movements of her hands the woman, brought the lock into submission when it slid upwards freeing the window to Ishtar, and once the path was set clear she climbed into the room and held her hand to Lucinda.

  
The room was dark and old. Hell, it almost seemed abandoned judging by the fair amount of webs and dust. Both women began to walk around the room, looking around, analyzing the surroundings, and everything they saw hinted at them being at the wrong spot, but that suggestion was impossible. With the cunning smile of the champion, Ishtar looked at the door. It would mean completely nothing, if not the light covering the floor from under the wooden door. Ishtar gestured to Lucinda as she closed the distance between her and the wall, and the girl followed. However, if the girl crept with caution of a prey, Ishtar just rolled her eyes and kicked the door open with her foot, making a lot of noise and notifying each one of her presence.

  
The men who just a second ago stood around a table filled with maps, parchments and books, turned around to look at the two women. Some stood up, pulling their sabers out, some kept in place only pulling sly, dirty smirks on their faces as their eyes scanned two women from the toes to foreheads, but neither knew who were the two hidden by cloaks and masks, in exclusion of a man who leaned on the wooden beam next to the entrance to the room. Ishtar turned her head and bowed it slightly in a greeting to her acquaintance, the man did the same with addition of his hand raising and slightly waving.

  
While Lucinda dug her hands into the inner sides of her cloak searching for the two pistols the woman gifted her, Ishtar only laughed loudly. Surprisingly to all present in the room, her hand raised up to her face that hidden by shadows and in a short movement pulled the mask down along with a cowl that cowered her ashen hair. Once her locks fled from their refuge, gracefully falling on her shoulders and framing her sun kissed face, the men who once looked at her with a greedy smirk now frowned and held their weapons too.

  
“Gentlemen,” The ashen haired said with her voice as seductive as it always was. The woman spread her arms wide and bowed to the men before her eyes. Without even a hint of fear on her face, she resumed to walk on a thin line around the men who gathered at the middle of the room. “Our mutual friend here,” The woman gestured her hand emphasizing the attention on the pirate captain who leaned against the beam. “Has told me that you are looking for the same man I do. This of course led us to two possible ways of this situation concluding. Either I take that information by force, plus judging by how you reacted to my appearance I take it you know what is my reputation, so I would not recommend that turn of events, or we nicely sit here, thinking of a plan and after the deal’s done we all forget about each other’s existence. You only seek for information the man has, don’t you?” The woman teased. Once she reached the point where the man stood, she turned around and leaned on the wood beside him.

  
“You damn sea devil, Azazel!” One of the men with a heavy black beard began to chortle loudly when he turned his back on the table and faced the woman. The man looked quite old but at the same time his body was muscular, probably from all the years he spent as a pirate. Adding a common mark to his look was an eye patch that hid an ugly dark red scar that crossed a half of his face, which gave him a rather intimidating look. However as he laughed his face became of that every drunkard had when they spend a lot of time in the tavern. “When you said you knew somebody who might be of help in this matter, I thought you talked of somebody a little less affiliated with the Order.” Then another of deep-throated laughs escaped his mouth before he took off the broad hat from his head and brought it to his chest in a bow. When he rose once more, he gained a nod from the woman who faced him. “Captain Redford Hetterly, otherwise known as Blackheart, but ladies such as you may call me Redford.”

  
“Duly noted, Captain Hetterly,”

  
“A mercy’s sake, Hetterly! She will bring us all to Davy Jones’ Locker!” A younger one of the man exclaimed loudly as he pulled out his pistol out of its sheath and pointed it at the woman. “What in the bloody hell have you been thinking while bringing her along, Azazel?” The man almost pulled the trigger when Lucinda fired, knocking the pistol out of the man’s hand.  
“Well,” The man replied with a sigh escaping his mouth as his head rose. “I look at it from a different perspective, matey. By uniting out forces together we have a greater chance of finding the man, moreover who else but a shadow can know how to find another of its kind.”

  
Slowly the men present in the room began to sheath their weapons and even Williams agreed with a heavy grunt leaving his lips and returned to the table. Ishtar smirked to herself and then turned her head in direction of her companion. With a quick nod, she notified Lucinda that the plan has gone in the right direction. The girl answered with a nod of her own and hid the two pistols.

  
“So what are we dealing with here? What do we know about the Keeper and how does it tie to the Maker?” When Ishtar reached the table, the men slightly scooted to a side emptying a little space for her to stand in so it would be possible for her to see all research that they have done.

  
“Ye’ don’t kno’ the ‘story of the Maker?” Williams asked once more with a scowl building on his features.

  
“No. Not to details at least. You know, the Order does not teach about cultural history. We are taught about wars, and factions, who to kill and how to kill, nothing more than that is needed to be a good weapon.” The woman replied with emotions on her face barely changing from cold to a little playful. “I know mere facts about religion. Order does not allow it in its walls, so there was really never a need to learn of it.”

  
“Yet you are a nun.” Azazel arched a brow before crossing his arms across his chest. His amber eyes scanned her features once again as she smiled wickedly and licked her bottom lip that became dry.

  
“I can bet you that each man present in this room had fantasized about hot, unceremonious sex with a servant of the Maker.” With that, men either coughed uncomfortably and blushed or laughed loudly simply agreeing with what she said. Azazel chuckled, pulled his hands out of the lock across his chest, and brought them to both sides of his head in a guarding stance.  
“Fair enough.” He said which only gained a wink from Ishtar before both turned their attention back to the map.

  
“Well since we are dealing with the legend here… I will just tell the whole story, so there are no questions.” Hetterly said while his hands reached for an old book with golden ornaments across its binds. From the looks of it, it was at least a good hundred years old, but it was strangely still in one-piece. “It all started…”

  
_Before the world, that we know it as was created it was nothing more but a pile of sand in Maker’s hand._


	5. Maker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very short chapter that took me years to write.  
> One thing I know though, I won't be suitable to be a scribe!   
> Good thing those days are long gone.
> 
> I'll try to post new chapter very soon.

Maker was not a God. The picture as we imagine him now as, was never the truth of it, but how can we know.

Maker was a being, though that which did not entirely exist. Without a vessel for his soul, he roamed the darkness of the eternal abyss that lies above our heads to this day. Before the world as we know it shaped and seven realms stood strongly in the dark of the abyss, there was nothing but emptiness. One would never know how it all began, but those who believe in the Maker say that he was that being that molded our worlds from nothingness.

Then when nothingness took form of the seven realms, there was a grand birth. From the pure dark appeared something so powerful, yet innocent. Verdivus, a star giving its warmth to everything its light touched. Soon, from its light, many little lives had been born. The realms bloomed with life, even on Battilus where fire burned throughout all day, there were little creatures who adapted, changed to fit the place where nothing was supposed to survive.

They existed like that, in natural peace, longer than any race that populates the seven realms nowadays. Nevertheless, no peace has a right to last so long. It had all ended when there appeared another living, each for every realm.

First few years the creatures guarded their homes. Every creature showed their respect for their guardians, but never did they share the same space with them. They were simply afraid. However, the guardians were alone, guessing why were they alone where every creature had multiple copies of itself. Soon the solitude had driven some insane and they broke the rules of their creator.

Centuries ago, the bridges between our worlds were still intact though not all could freely cross them without Maker’s word. Yet driven by the selfish want, some of the guardians did the impossible and found a way to break the rules by fooling their master.

Once the guardians crossed the bridges, and met each other, there was no going back. The guardians took the peace away, and the Maker took the titles of those who betrayed him. Those nameless, joined in tribes, and with their privileges taken away needed to stay together to survive, without any hints how to, in the place where they are those who are hunted. At least before, they figured out how to kill and once they did, the balance had fallen and crashed.

Then the creatures spoke. Then they felt. Then they held each other and more of their kind had been born into that world. Maker seeing that angered. How dare they go against his will? He screamed into the abyss watching his creations from the side. Maker cursed them. _They wanted to be the same as other creatures. To have a pair and to live, to procreate just as those below their feet did. So let them have their wish come true._ Maker cursed and his curses took action turning the nameless into the races that populate seven realms now. Therefore, the tribes divided and moved to different realms, since not one was ready to cooperate with another.

One of these tribes called themselves Laments and their realm they called Terrae because of its lush plains and forests. But with time their number grew too big and conflicts were impossible to avoid. Laments have divided once again and then again and so on until there were only dozens of them per group. They moved out to seek what hid behind the high mountains of their land, and then they built. They truly thought Terrae belonged to them, disowning their master, their father, their creator. But he did not curse them no longer, he only watched, silently, patiently from the side awaiting for his move.

For centuries, Maker watched his children progress. For centuries, he watched how the balance slowly crashed down. Maker wanted to know what these creatures think they are. Therefore, he descended from his throne, emerging in his human form on Terrae. He stood in the forest, every creature leaving their shelters to greet their creator, but his goal was not that so he moved to the edge of the forest where two battling human settlements stood. He watched the Laments for a long time as he stood on the slope of the hill. At morn, they woke and instantly went on to work in the fields, at noon they rested and at even they fought. He watched them for years, each day his anger for them grew.

But one day there appeared a woman with hair the color of sunset. In that village, they called her Arcana. She was not like any of her kind. She was soft and tender like a doe that peacefully lived bringing joy and warmth with her arrival. Maker was surprised. All of her kind who he had seen before had some sort of darkness in them, while she did not have one tiniest evil thought in her head.

His attention turned from the village to her alone. And he watched her from the shadows that the trees made. Love building in his soul.

Years passed and the woman met the Maker. She had fallen in love with the human that she saw before her eyes not knowing who the man truly was. And the Maker felt the same for the woman. They met secretly each even when the village slept, so nobody would know of them. But their happiness did not last long when a man from the village who loved Arcana followed her one night. Angered by the image of his beloved in the arms of another man, the boy unsheathed his sword and leaped at the Maker when he turned his back on the boy. Arcana noticed the flash of iron in the corner of her eye and quickly jumped to the side of her love in hopes to push him away from the weapon. The weapon did not strike the Maker. But there was crimson on the grass below his feet. Arcana had taken the blow of the sword on her saving the man she loved, in cost of her own life.

Maker cradled her lifeless body in his embrace, shaking in disbelief. He cried, he screamed, he cursed, but her body just became colder with every second. In the form of a human, he was powerless, worthless but he knew that he could still save her if he left it. Therefore, he stood, left his appearance of a man and dissolved into the form of the abyss. He kneeled before her and breathed the life into her.

The woman lived. Even when her body and soul were changed and she no longer could be around her kind, she lived.

 

Years later, their children were born and they have gained the powers of both their parents, becoming the next guardians of seven realms. However, their children were a completely new race; millions of lives spread across the world united under one name, Asivari. Therefore, only seven most trustful of Asivari became guardians. Only seven gave up their freedom, their wants and desires in exchange for power to protect.

Arcana, seeing how her children became lifeless warriors loyal to her husband wept. The sounds of her tears hatefully hitting the ground were heard day and night, she lost that light inside her and that purity. She hated and cursed her beloved for making her precious children lose their humanity and become just another part of the abyss, but the Maker only scolded her for that. _They decided to pay the cost for others to live._ He spoke so many times but she did not hear him. Why did _her_ children have to pay for the sins of others? She cried, not once and not twice but each time when the melody of her cries renewed.  Then, her tears turned into stones, stones born of a mix of despair and love. The woman sat upon them gazing into the transparent crystals in her palms with tears still cloaking them and once the pool of her tears appeared in her palms, she kissed each one of the stones a hundred times before they took color, each symbolizing every of the seven realms.

She gathered all the stones and gave them to each one of her children who had sacrificed themselves. The stones were powerful, so powerful those who looked at them tainted fell to submission to the magic deep inside the crystals. Her children however, when given the stones took the single emotion that was placed in the depth of it by their mother. Once again, the guardians were broken by the distant emotion. Maker when seeing this angered at his wife, but then as he saw her weep once again he softened. He gathered back the stones but then gave them back to his children. The emotion of the stones tamed down, while the powers of the guardians moved inside the vessels in form of these crystals. His children had become human once again, returned to their siblings and lived upon other races peacefully until a great war of elements.

Stones however were taken away from the children of the maker forever and given to the man nowadays we call the Seekers with a task to spread them across the world until a suitable carrier would be found. The man since he was blind never felt the taint of the stones, and even as he held them, he just smiled to his creator and bowed his head saying how he would not fail him and the Maker smiled in return to the loyal creature.  Nobody ever knew who the man was, the only thing that was true is that he lived and lives on longer than any creature on these seven lands and that he is the only creature that knows of the locations of the stones and the power they behold.


	6. Company

 

After Hetterly finished the tale he sighed, and with the sound escaping from his lips, he lowered into the chair tired and rubbed his eyes. Not that the tale had been long, and the man definitely did not tell every single detail there is to it, only gave a short summary of the story that would take the whole night to tell, but he was still tired trying to remember every important aspect after not retelling the story for decades.

“So…” The young girl on the other side of the table, who apparently had been almost laying on it, spoke through a yawn as she stretched her arms upright after her nap. “We’re chasing a legend. It seemed more realistic before the whole myth was told.” She continued, giving Ishtar a playful roll of her eyes, and the woman as if understanding what the gesture mean chuckled lightly covering her smile with her gloved hand then winking in reply. “Y’know it’s called a myth for a reason, old man.”

The ‘old man’ as he was referred to only chuckled tiredly and dipped his hat a little lower on his head. The younger man however, who disapproved of assassin’s appearance in the room freely exposed his thoughts towards the comment of the girl.

“Hold yo tongue, woman!” He yelled out, instinctively pulling out his rapier, but was quickly stopped by Azazel’s hand on his shoulder telling him to cancel whatever he planned to do with the weapon. With a grunt, he turned around and walked to the closest wall hidden in the shadows where the old wooden chandelier above the table could not send its light. Azazel only smirked at that and walked closer to the table, leaning on it with both his hands.

“We already spoke of the possible places we may start our search, and some were already checked, but there was nothing helpful at all.”

“What have you tried out?” Ishtar slid onto the side of the table in front of the man on the other side of the table by Lucinda’s side and crossed both her hands across her chest. The other few men in the room beside the two pirates who talked with her before, stared bluntly at her provocative pose as her skirt revealed a great deal of her skin as she placed one leg on top of another. However, the man who she faced did not even flinch at that no matter of their close relationship. He just looked at the map very focused just as she did, his finger placing mental pinpoints on the locations that they have checked. Ishtar only nodded interestingly investigating the map as if she saw it for the first time in her life. Then with a cocky smile across her lips, she shifted on the wooden desk, so that the cutout of her shirt expended almost to the point the place where her legs met their beginning was seen, which of course caused more than a few to swallow and pull a little closer to the scene.

Her gloved finger fell on the large place of the map. It was located on the continent north from Rothem. A large kingdom called Rysthem. Unlike many other kingdoms across the Terrae, Rysthem was not ruled by wealth. It was rather a land ruled singly by the chantry. In addition to that, it was known to be a place of great knowledge about the Maker because everybody who lived there was so strangely addicted to their god.

“There, in Rysthem, is a city called Vallen. In that place is second to largest collection of tomes compared to that of elves. But since nobody but a few souls ever been shown the elven collection, it is considered to be the first on the list.” She said slowly as her eyes raised to meet the man’s who had been studying her features to what it seemed.  She smirked and then continued. “But the point is that, the chantry had led expeditions before, in hopes to find the Seeker and the seven stones and place them under their protection. But never did they succeed.” She made a pause and frowned slightly. “I have a man there who knows a great deal of things and if paid enough coin he should be more than glad to help us.”

“A mysterious contact is more than nothing. We set sail tomorrow morn. Rysthem is only a few days away, but since I suppose pirate sails will not exactly be of warm welcome it might take us more time to arrive.” The man finished before raising his hat from the table and placing it on his head, dismissing the other pirates by the simple gesture. Though it took them a little longer to rise from their seats and leave as they stared at the woman who still sat at the table but as she looked back at them and winked they quickly vanished from the scene. However, both Hetterly and Williams remained in the room, though neither said a word before the last of the pirate left the room.

Then Hetterly rose from his chair and groaned as only an old man would. “I do suppose we will meet again, dear.” He addressed Ishtar as he slowly bowed down and extended his hand only to grasp hers lightly. “If only I were younger.” He said as he planted a gentle kiss on the back of her hand and raised back to stand upright.

“Oh no, monsier, I really do think that men such as you age quite wonderfully. But I suppose the number of maidens I would have to fight is too great for me to handle.” The woman faked sadness in her voice but did not even make a try to hide it.

“Oh that truly is pitiful, but I suppose I wouldn’t want to get an enemy in face of that fellow over there.”

“Which one of the two do you speak of? The one that is over skeptical who has a grim look on his face or the one that is devilishly smug?” The woman replied with a whisper to the man, eyeing the two men who stood in front of them. While Williams stared at Hetterly and the assassin with confusions, Azazel only chuckled lightly, his fingers pulling his hat a little lower on his face. The four of them including Lucinda who has been almost rolling on the floor laughing as she watched the young man angrily study the whispering pair.

“I suppose, now that you have pointed it out, both will have me killed if we do continue this little game of ours.” Said the man and straightened back up giving the woman a cheeky smile and receiving the same in reply from her and she bowed and took a few steps away from the table. Once she was at least a good four steps away Lucinda wrapped her body around Ishtar’s arm and pulled slightly still uncontrollably laughing. With a rather sweet little fake smile of hers, the older woman with ashen hair pulled the mask over her naturally pale red lips and winked at the man who quickly pulled his rapier out of its sheath.

“Drop that smirk, wench!” The man screamed but Ishtar already turned around and began to descend into the shadows, the girl following her with short little jumps alike to a child. Soon both women were gone from the scene and even as the man followed them into he shadows nothing but a faint scent of rose was left behind. As the man returned, back to the two of his companions he slammed the table with both his hands and yelled out his complaints regarding the whole situation but both of other two men only replied with loud husky chuckles they could hold no longer.

 

As the men sat idly at the tavern main floor, both having a mug of either ale of rum in their hands they talked of many things. Hetterly was still very enticed by the mysterious woman he had just seen, but his interest was not that of sexual character. He found her interesting because the tales about the ashen haired assassin spread far and wide and they were often described to be horror stories for children to be told before sleep warning them to be good or the woman with hair of ash would come and steal them from their homes.

“Hence, I couldn’t expect her being that pleasant after hearing all this.” The man said loudly before swinging his ale so the liquid spilled onto the floor. The woman who had sat behind him, with her bust over his shoulders slightly winced but then resumed the seducing play of her fingers through the old man’s shirt. But that did nothing to attract his attention.

Azazel laughed purely because the stories that his fellow friend told him were so far from the truth they almost made complete nonsense. “Do not be foolish, Hetterly.” He said shortly, after which he took a sip from the mug, liquid spilling into his mouth and traveling down his throat that caused him to groan hoarsely when the mug was lowered to sit at the tabletop. “Believing in a smile of an assassin is the same as giving your head right to the man who set the bounty after committing a homicide.” And yet he did exactly that. It was of course quite complicated between the two of them. The relationship of theirs continued for over five years, but in those years they always split and then reunited back together.

Then Azazel was brought from his thoughts as Hetterly replied to him. “Well, you must be right. I will be careful not to give her a reason to unleash those daggers hidden beneath her clothes.” The man said calmly. He was a man of many years and had seen women like her but he himself who were so proud of his own objectivity had to admit that it took him good ten minutes to figure out where the weapons were located. Even when he did find them, it was when the woman intentionally revealed them to him as she shifted on the table. “However, you seem to be quite accustomed with her. Something going on behind those closed doors of yours, doesn’t it?”

“There is always something nasty happening behind closed doors.” The man replied with a smug smile.

“Oi, you know I did not mean that. But do tell, my friend, do tell. I am quite interested.”

“Another day, Hetterly.” The man said before he rose from his stool and descended up to his room on the second floor of the tavern. 

As the door behind him closed, the man sighed out a long deep grunt and walked over to the window. Slowly he leaned over on the sill of the window and looked out at the city below the glass frames. So they have met again, he thought, but on a very odd occasion. As he thought that, he froze for a few moments but then laughed at his own thoughts. It seemed they always met at odd occasions, so there was nothing much to be amazed by. The man had already got used to the woman getting herself in all sorts of trouble and him tagging alongside her, but this time it was a little different. If usually she would just tell him that her mission was to kill here and there, this time she seemed even more secretive. Just as if they were back at the phase one, when both were only strangers to each other and the closet with her skeletons resembled a huge graveyard instead of a closed box. It was all very strange. So suddenly, a number of different groups had set out to find the Seeker, and it seemed both the royalty and the second party groups like the Order that is greater than any governmental force combined are all after the same goal.

As minutes or perhaps hours passed, the man had sighed loudly leaving his cloudy thoughts at the back of his mind, his body still leaning against the windowsill as he watched the streets with great interest. Very slowly, he moved from the window and made a few steps backwards, then turned towards the small cozy little bed at the side of the room. Heavily he fell on the mattress as if he weighted a ton and relaxed like a dead man, spreading his limbs wide as he slowly accustomed to the hard softness of the material beneath him. Minutes later, after staring at the ceiling for a good half an hour the man gave up, closed his eyes and fell into the deep slumber, his mind bringing flashes of the woman as he dreamt to the soothing melody of the offshore wind.

 

   The next day when the warm orange tones of the sunrise only slightly tinted the dark night sky, the man woke. It was only an hour or less until the night would descend and turn into day, so he did not hurry to stand from his bed. He laid still, his eyes closed and body relaxed. Some who would see him at that moment would even say that he was not breathing at all, so still he was. The man sighed deeply and slightly opened his eyes but what he saw caused his body to rise from the sheets quickly.

   With a smirk across her lips, Ishtar sat idly on the side of his bed calmly tying her hair into a braid. How could he not feel her weight on the mattress? He asked himself inside his head.

“Nobody ever taught you that leaving your window open when you sleep in dangerous?”

“You wouldn’t be able to get in if I have closed it.” Very slowly he leaned on the wall on the side of the bed, relaxing once again as he watched the woman. The woman on the contrary only showed him her curved lips and turned around, her fingers still working out the order of the braid. A normal man would ask her how she got in, or what was she doing there in his room, but Azazel only sighed and with that sigh he extended his hand and grasped a lock of the ashen hair with his fingers, caressing it carefully. But she seemed to notice the little gesture and stopped the work her hands turning her head just enough to see the man.

          As if reading off the mess inside the man’s head the woman carefully stood on the mattress on her knees and crawled towards the man. At first Azazel did not move, yet his hand still rested in midair with that single strand of her hair he caressed a moment ago still caught up in a knot between his fingers. Then as the distance between them slowly decreased, he moved his hand deeper into her hair breaking the order of her braid completely as he brushed his fingers lightly over her scalp.

The woman moved slowly until her body collapsed into his as she curled her arms around his neck pulling their bodies even closer together than they have been already. As if done too many times before, the woman shifted on the man’s lap, so that both her thighs were on either side of his which made her body push a little up, so that then his head was laying in the middle of her chest when his arms curled around her torso.

They sat silently, with the air in the room only disturbed by their synchronized breathing. The woman in a tight embrace of a man, slowly and tenderly brushing through his hair and the man massaging her back through the tight leather of her corset in circular motions. But once the silence was interrupted by the loud banter of the lively street just below the windows of their room, the woman pulled away from the man slowly standing on the floor.

“Come on, love,” The woman started, quickly finishing off her look by sliding the cowl over her hair. Slowly she walked towards the window with and even placed her foot on the windowsill, only then allowing herself to change the direction of her gaze to the man. “We must sail off soon.” Without waiting for an answer or spending even one more second, the woman quickly threw herself over the wooden plane of the windowsill. And it seemed she would fall down with a loud thump of her body hitting the ground, but she did not make even one single quiet sound.

The man stood however and walked over to the place she stood at and pulled his head out of the window, his palms hitting the wood to support his weight and looked back out into the window. He smirked, when he noticed her body gracefully descending from his view as she ran along the thin, straight imaginary line on one of the roofs.

 

When they met again, the day was already lighten by the weak yet bright rays of the cold morning sun. The woman stood in the shade of some tent by the side of the long walkway at the docks that lead to the high number of ships. The girl, who has been seen alongside her the night before was surprisingly there too, arguing with some salesman about the price of something that was bargained to her. The woman however, simply leaned on some beam that supported the tent, looking off into the distance at something far beyond physical.

Soon, the docks seemed to silence, as a group of men appeared somewhere in the distance. All heads were automatically turned in their direction, and any action done the moment before, stopped. Even Lucinda, so actively fighting for her deal, stopped surprisingly to Ishtar, and watched the men approach proudly with their teams. The ashen haired however, only gave the men a single gaze and then resumed her search for something that was not there far at the horizon. Very calmly, as the distance between the group and the two women grew little to nothing, the woman pulled herself away from the wooden beam and made a few steps in direction of the men, with a rather sultry smile across her pale lips. Those present at the docks, looked at the woman askance, surprised by such a brave action. There at the famous home of the pirates, the Bellamy, as they lovely called it, the pirate captains were respected highly, if not feared. Even though most knew them as normal men who did not mind to spend their silver in the taverns, among whores and drunkards, none could forget about the stories roaming the seas beyond the island.

“You look wonderful today,” The older man, already known to them as Hetterly said in his pleasant deep tenor while one of his hands caught one of the woman’s. The man bowed down and planted a soft peck on the back side of Ishtar’s hand which only gained her bright smile. “Both of you,” He added then, looking at the other woman who has decided to leave the unfair bargain and join her friend’s side. The man himself looked different from what he did the previous night. More, powerful, it seemed. Most likely, it was as simply as the rule that the captain had to be respected and feared, so he kept a strict face when his team was around.

As a reply to the man’s compliment, the two women looked at each other and laughed soundlessly, as if they had one of those silent conversations only women could have. Then Ishtar rolled her eyes, probably at the witty remark of the young girl, judging by her confident smile and the play of her eyebrows, and looked back at the man giving him a nod.

Other men, who stood behind Hetterly, either laughed at the amusing gesture or frowned at how easily the man trusted the two strangers, even though both were far beyond beautiful. Ishtar actually smirked at them. It was quite funny to her. They were all pirates, and most of that group seemed to be respected on Bellamy, but she knew only three names of the dozen who were present. And, she would know their names at least if they were anyhow important or famous. It was simply that her job required knowing such minor information.

Slowly the group began to walk towards the end of the docks, where the grand ships were located. As soon as the group began to move, the life at the docks surprisingly seemed to resume. There were still a couple of eyes following their movements as they descended down the docks, but most just returned to whatever they have been doing as if the men were not there at all.

Once they have reached the little crossroad at the end of one long path, the group stopped and this time, Azazel, instead of Hetterly spoke, which made Ishtar stand there with her mouth opened in awe and other men in the group shrug lightly either in fear or in disgust, but none actually moved from the spot.

“Since we have decided not to draw too much attention to our personas,” The man started slowly, giving each person a serious gaze from under his hat. “There will be only two ships going to Rysthem.” Of course, as soon as the man said that, the crowd, those who Ishtar laughed at a few moments ago, began to yell and argue that doing as Azazel said would be stupid and that he is mad. Ishtar was even pretty sure she heard a few men say that she was a witch and their fellow fell under her spell. “Sailing there with our whole flotilla would be more than hilarious!” Once again, almost shocking the ashen haired woman, the man said, anger clear in the deep tone of his voice as he spoke. “There are thousands of king’s ships around the Rysthem. Sending a dozen of ours, would make us a big target.” The men calmed down, either from the tone that the man spoke with or simply because they agreed to what he was saying. “Instead, we divide in smaller groups. While two ships go to Rysthem, others will sail to the other targets that we have information on. Now, any questions?”

Ishtar was so amazed by how wonderfully the man dealt with the little revolt, that she did not even notice how somebody placed a hand on her shoulder and laughed beside her ear. Only a moment later, when she felt a little shiver run up her spine the woman turned and looked up at the eyes of happy Hetterly who looked at her as if he knew a dark secret.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” The man said, smirking like a Cheshire cat. “You know, they call him the devil for a reason, Ishtar.”

Then the rats, as Ishtar began calling that group of men whose names were not important for her to know, walked away from the rest of the group. So there were only the two women and the three men left standing at the docks. But soon, the three men began to walk so Ishtar and Lucy involuntary followed after them. Both seemed to have a million questions displayed on their faces, but neither decided to announce them.

When the long path to the end of the eastern docks ended, the name of which the women learned later from overhearing the conversation of the men, the group stopped nearby the two large ships. The men, who seemed to have a serious conversation stopped, shook hands and only then turned to the women.

“Come, dear,” Hetterly suddenly appeared right in front of Ishtar and grabbed her hand with both of his. “I’ll show you around my lovely, Victoria!” The man said excitedly while he pulled the woman onto the bride that led to the ship.

Of course he did not make it too far since out of nowhere, on his shoulder landed a strong hand and the man stopped at the spot. Lucinda just stood there at one spot, looking firstly at Ishtar and that younger pirate who seemed to be just as surprised as she was, then at the two men who stood close to Ishtar. One with a mix of a smile and a frown across his features, rather making him look crazy than serious if it was what he indented to do. And at another, whose hand was strongly squeezing Hetterly’s shoulder.

“Oh, come on, Az,” The man mumbled out a nickname, placing an emphasis on it, since when said quickly, it could have been mistaken with “ass”. Then he turned around, the quick motion pulling the woman whose hand he held under his arm so that it fell atop of her shoulders. “Make an old man happy! You can’t have it all by yourself!”

The man on the other hand let go of his friend’s shoulder and crossed his arms across his chest looking rather at the woman than at the man. The woman looked at him in surprise, while the man answered simply with a light smirk which only gained a roll of the beauty’s eyes. Hetterly seeing all this just sighed. “Oh well,” He said while pulling the woman into an embrace that she did not mind and even answered. “I suppose you can.” He laughed out and let go of the woman, whispering a soft goodbye to her when she left his embrace and walked over to the girl who still stood with her mouth open so wide, flies could have flown into and out of it.

Soon, Hetterly, among the young Captain Williams, rose up the bridge and after a short wave either towards the woman or the man disappeared behind the walls of the ship.

Ishtar looked back at the ship which stood proudly behind her back. It was a beautiful ship, though hurt in some places, but with that strong feel to it that all pirate ships should have. It was a crazy day for the woman, and then it was the fourth or fifth time she was standing frozen in awe in the company of the man. Truly crazy.

“You’ve got your ship?” The woman asked when they were walking up the impossibly long bridge to the deck. The girl has rushed off quickly, eager to see what it is like upstairs and probably pick a room and a bucket before the ship would begin to move. Ishtar however, walked calmly by the man’s side, her arms curled around his bicep as if they were an old couple. They could allow themselves as much before she met the team and had to play indifference towards the man.

“Aye,” The man said shortly, a sly smirk crossing his lips as he looked down at her for a moment before crossing his arms across his chest and chuckling quietly. The woman looked at him in surprise. She swore she lost count of the times she was surprised that day. “Why won’t you try and guess her name, love.” The man said once again with that devilish tone of his, which he seemed to use only around her or in the group of close friends where he could allow himself to relax.

“Mmm,” The woman moaned through her closed in a soft smile lips and rolled her eyes. “Won’t you be a lamb and tell me yourself?” The woman said, her body turned a little to a side so that she could see his face when she gave him one of her sultry looks.

The man however, only smirked and lowered his face down to hers. His own auburn eyes looked so deep that moment so that the woman already lost all interest that she had towards the name of the ship. She even pulled herself a little higher, standing to her tiptoes just to feel his hot breath against her lips. The man pulled even closer and Ishtar even closed her eyes in anticipation but all that she felt was a brush of the stuble of his cheek and the raspy voice at her ear.

“Her name is...

Temptress.”

 


	7. A Tempted Crew Part 1

That moment, the man swore he could have felt Ishtar stumble and lean backwards a little, which was quite unusual. But he did not exactly have time to check his hypothesis as the woman quickly straightened as if nothing happened, let go of her grasp on his bicep and gave him a little tiny cough that he almost did not catch.

“You pirates and your odd ways of naming things.” The woman mumbled unshakably, and then turned with a smile that the man could not exactly recognize or read. In addition, once the man opened his mouth to ask what did the expression that painted her features meant, the woman turned around and jumped over the last step of the bridge. Once the woman disappeared behind the board of the deck, leaving the man to wander in his thoughts, he stood there still for a good couple of moments before he shook his head, giving up, and followed her.

Ishtar was never in awe before the pirate ships, until then at least. They lacked all that grace and organization of the king’s flotilla, yet the spirit of freedom carried by the pirates was something so wrongly divine that captivated both the attention and sympathy of anyone who had ever been on the deck. When her feet touched the scratched by battle wood on the deck, the woman stopped and for a few moments just studied every single wound the planks carried in form of cracks. Though just as in the situation, where the scars made the man more handsome, the cracks in the wood gave them the respect. Hesitantly, the woman raised her gaze and trailed it a dozen bodies who hardly even noticed her, until the moment when she felt a presence of somebody by her side to which everybody turned their heads.

Most men saluted once they saw their captain on board, others snickered when they noticed the ashen haired woman by his side, but none really left their duty for too long. For then at least.

“Beautiful isn’t she?” Suddenly appeared Azazel asked from the woman as he pulled his hat a little lower on his face to create a denser shadow.

For a moment, the woman just turned toward him and studied the way he looked. To her surprise, once again in such a short time, the man looked very different from what he had only moments ago. From the way he stood, like a king among his people with both his hands crossed around his chest in a lock, to the pride and possessiveness mixed with loving tones in the warm ambers of his eyes. Then joined by those little details only Ishtar could notice about him, the man gained a rather intimidating look. However, even if the look would send the souls of normal men and woman to their feet, on Ishtar it had a more… arousing effect.

“Should I tell you the ugly truth or the sweet lie?” Taking another step in their never-ending game, the woman asked, with her lips curving in a sly yet sexy smile and the tone of her voice falling until the notes flying off her lips sounded more like a feline purr rather than a human speech. She shifted her weight and her hip slightly touched his once raised, though the touch itself was almost too little to be considered as one. Her hands, just as his, found their way in a lock around her chest, with an only difference that they were placed under her breasts, which only uplifted them giving the cleavage in between a more defined look.

The man only looked at her from the corners of his eyes, while a wicked, devilish smirk appeared across his lips. He leaned towards her and opened his mouth to say something. But once his lips were inches away from her ear and she almost felt his breath on her skin, the man was stopped Lucinda whose hand appeared between his and Ishtar’s skin. She stood glancing at both Ishtar and Azazel, with wary in her eyes, but once Ishtar rolled her own eyes and looked back at the girl, she smirked and chuckled lightly.

“No. Lucy, no.” The woman murmured, raising her pointer finger at the girl, as if she were a pup who was about to do something its owner did not like. But the girl only laughed louder and made a step backward once the woman stepped closer to her in attempt to shut her up. Her lips curved in a grin and she began to say something but Ishtar quickly covered her mouth with her hand and frowned.

“This is… surprisingly very entertaining.”

A sudden voice came from beside them. Ishtar turned her head cautiously at the sound, and Lucinda as well tried, through the hold of the woman’s fingers on her mouth made it impossible so she just turned her gaze. Azazel however, who only laughed hoarsely on the side at the scene that unrolled before his eyes then smiled, exclaimed something neither woman could understand and walked to the man. They shook hands, like old friends and then both turned towards the two women.

It was a podgy man with grey curly hair sticking out of the brown bandana. He had an oddly nice and kind expression, though the woman guessed it was only because he was not completing his duties at that exact moment. But Ishtar, through the many years of training learnt that men are usually different from what they seem to be from a first glance. However, it was little of her concern and she allowed her hand to slip from Lucinda’s mouth and only then sat in a curtsey, very theatrically spreading her hands a little higher than her shoulder blades. In reply to that, the man pulled his imaginary hat off his bolding head and bowed low, his lips falling onto her hand in a soft peck before he pulled them back to speak.

 “Good day to you, miss. Name’s Samuel Kook, the Quartermaster of the Temptress, a family man, and an old friend of this gentleman right here.” The man spoke with a thick eastern accent that she noticed was quite common among the pirates, but for some reason still unknown to Ishtar, he felt different from others. More civil, she thought which curved the lines of her lips. Then suddenly a more alerting comment brought the smile down. “And you must be Lady Ishtar? I have heard a lot about you.”

“Really?” The woman arched a brow. “I wonder from whom.” Her head turned towards the man who stood beside Mister Kook, almost falling to the floor in the tidal wave of laughter. Deciding to pay little attention to him, Ishtar turned back to her new acquaintance with a sincerely soft smile. “It is a pleasure, Mr. Kook.”

“And who, might I ask, is this beautiful young lassie?” Without any of the dirt usually found among the words pirates say in a conversation, Kook asked, quite charmingly, as he looked at Lucinda. “I have noticed she gave herself an excursion around the deck in the last minute.”

“Lucy. Lucinda Witmore. One of the greatest thieves you’ll ever meet if you visit Belleza.”

“A thief who cannot even bargain with a ship captain, for the sake of saving her money? Yes. You are truly the greatest of thieves, Lucy.” Ishtar prompted with a clear intention of humor. Luckily, it seemed the two women spent enough time alongside each other to share an understanding between them, so Lucy did not took any offense from Ishtar’s words. Instead, she smirked slyly like a fox and emitted a very light, almost inaudible giggle. The men laughed as well, or at least Mr. Kook did, who was in Ishtar’s range of sight unlike Azazel who stood somewhere behind her, but only for a short moment. In the next second, without any unneeded word that would conclude the end of their conversation, Azazel turned, tipped his hat once again in an act of goodbye, and walked up the stairs accompanied by the same Mr. Kook to the quarterdeck.

Fighting against the sudden interest to see how Azazel commanded the crew and the ship, Ishtar bit her bottom lip. Her hand rose to her scalp and slightly ruffled the pale blonde hair with her fingers, as if it would release the steam from her body. She looked around, but did not see the young girl anywhere. She then turned around a couple of times, spinning in one spot as her eyes scanned the every little detail on the ship in search for a heap of obsidian colored hair. Unable to locate her companion, Ishtar sighed, thinking there was nowhere the girl could have went since the ship has already moved at least ten yards from the pier and there was little need to worry about her.

The Temptress moved, slowly sliding, almost hovering, across the sturdy planks of the ship whose name was same as hers. She strolled around the main deck, carrying her grace in such way, that it almost seemed as if she was royalty and not an ordinary thug, with her hand sliding over the railing in a soothing caress, in hopes to heal the ugly scars sitting deep in the hard wood. Due to the bright aquatic blue of the sea, the color illuminated by the woman’s eyes, which usually carried a rather dark navy tone, seemed almost arctic as she skimmed her gaze hazily over her surroundings. Firstly, it followed the patterns painted into the wood by the Mother Nature herself, then once the railing came to a sharp end at the narrowest point of the ship where two walls met, her eyes trailed back, to the area behind her back forcing her spine to curve as she turned.

It was chaotic, yet so very organic how the men moved around the deck in such order, even the king’s army would become jealous. As times passed, slowly building into minutes, Ishtar kept watching. From the shadows of one of the masts, she stood studying every minor move done by Azazel’s crew, which slowly turned into practiced schemes with each passing second. The men moved in such harmony with each other that it seemed that even if she would tie a blind around their eyes, they would move exactly the same way, as if enchanted to do one thing repeatedly without any particular difference.

With time, watching the repetitive sequence grew more and more tiresome. Even as it was oddly satisfying to see the efficient work of the sailors, the woman yawned once her eyes turned heavy and watery. It appeared that she spent at least an hour watching them work, and then it felt as if she woke after long and exhausting daydreaming, which took her energy away rather than giving it to her as expected. A moment later, she raised one of her hands and softly rubbed her tear ducts in many ways reminding of a child with such short and unsure moves.  People who spent enough time with the woman often noted that. When she felt no need to be in constant control of herself and when she was not afraid to be vulnerable before the eye of people around her, Ishtar frequently became very similar to a young little kid who knew nothing of blood and pain unlike her opposite adult side. Then, everything from the tone of her voice to the way she carried herself changed, became softer and innocent. Normally, as she walked her hips would rock from side to side seductively, sometimes raising the fabric of her skirts up her slim legs, other times revealing perhaps too much of her creamy thighs. However, once Ishtar forgot to worry, a mask of the seductress slowly slid from her features leaving her walk graceful as she slid through the air like a wild doe.

At first, she did not hurry to walk away from her observation point. She simply turned around, fixing her spine back, and leaned on the rails that kept her from falling on the other side of the ship with her elbows and relaxed, allowing herself to close her eyes and take a deep large breath. Immediately her lungs invited the salty air inside them, and she held her breath, trying to taste it before she exhaled and with that almost collapsed on the railing. The sea air was always so much different from the usual. It was fuller, more savory than the tainted air inside the villages. Oddly enough, it felt just like what most would imagine the air from the stories to feel like. The stories in which it is described to carry life and freedom and with each new breath, a character took, he took more and more traits of the true, beautiful wilderness.

As her eyes were closed, the senses she received only intensified. She stood, motionless placing her weight at her hips, as they were the only points of support to her body. Very slowly, she lowered her hands off the rails and lifted them just slightly above her shoulder height spreading them widely apart as though they suddenly transformed into wings. With those alleged wings, the woman felt the breeze collect and ruffle her feathers soothingly. It almost felt as if the wind itself caressed her lovingly. With his large hands and smooth fingers brushing against her body, it was an only man existing who did not once thought of the blood on her hands. Human problems by no means concerned him. He had no morality to judge, which served as a reason for his appreciation for Ishtar’s imperfect beauty. 

Minutes passed before Ishtar reopened her eyes with a large sigh leaving her lips at the same time. Somewhere above her head, she joined her hands in a small lock and stretched out, arching her back to form a half moon figure. Then with another sigh, she turned around and began to descend the stairs to the main deck where the work silenced while she enjoyed her time with the wind.

She dragged herself over the boards, her ears catching ever so slightly heard sounds coming from the floor beneath her feet. Of course, the main reason she strolled towards the empty deck was her curiosity and now it was leading her eyes towards the open hatch somewhere in the middle, where she noticed most men to work. Then however, it was empty without a single soul to disturb the quiet melody of silence. For a moment, Ishtar raised her navy blue eyes upward from the hatch, to where Azazel had disappeared along with Mr. Kook when they bid goodbye for the time being. Quickly she became satisfied to see Azazel with his wide hands that she adored, in control of the ship. There were still few people running their errands around the deck, so she did not dare to rise to his level and start a talk. Though his appearance as the ship captain made her little calmer and some would even say that her lips invisibly quirked in a smile, but that would simply be yet another tale, the truth of which nobody could prove.

A moment later, her eyes drew away from the man and directed back at that curious hatch in the floor. To kill her curiosity at last, the woman crossed the distance between her and the hatch in a few short strides and carefully slid into it without the slightest of sounds.

Inside the inner deck, there was hardly any light due to how densely the thin area of the hallway was packed with big shipping boxes filled to the edges with all sorts of goods the pirates sold at their ports. There was little light, making the room very dark and heavy with each little particle of dust visible to the eye under the rare but sharp lines of light that passed through the little gaps the boxes made. There were a few men around the small hallway, but they either slept or were too busy hunting the rats they did not notice Ishtar passing by. She however simply followed the quieted voices that echoed from the walls as she walked deeper and deeper down the hallway until she faced a door from where the sounds came from.

As the door opened and Ishtar stepped into the room, a loud clamor of voices deafened her. However, Ishtar’s life filled itself with such gull so without a wince or a pause she walked deeper into the tiny room, which somehow held the whole crew of the Temptress inside of it. To no surprise, the room had a distinct stench of alcohol mixed with sweat, but it was not the type to cause disgust, and on contrary, such character the room had added warmth to it and a strange feeling of invitation. Such feeling was also complimented by the smiles of men as they sang their sailor ballads. Though of course there were those who unlike others decided to spend a few minutes of their lives arguing on something stupid and then getting into a friendly brawl because their opinions were too different, or simply for the sake of adrenaline they would have gotten from a good old fight. As Ishtar passed, she had to duck at least twice to keep her face unbeaten, since the men did not notice anybody but whom they were facing. Although, one could not have noted on how easily the woman passed between the men towards the heart of the room where most noise came from, as if there was a path only visible to her eye where no other dared to step.

Very quietly, without raising much of a hustle the woman made her way to a group of men who formed a circle around something and stood at its border, folding her hands across her chest. Though finally sailors noticed her presence, and for some reason, although none of them knew of her origin as an assassin, they made a small passage for her and she stepped in closer to see a dagger throwing match. Lucy sat there at the stool waiting for her turn as her opponent threw the old rusty knives into the wall where the target was drawn with some kind of paint.  The girl cussed under her breath as the man got a higher score than her, and jumped off her stool. There was no need to continue a match since Lucy had only one dagger left and if it did not reach the very middle of the target, which seemed more than impossible, she would lose. The girl already pulled her hand into the pocket of her leather leggings when Ishtar stepped in with a smirk across her lips and picked the dagger off the plate where it sat. She smiled to the man and then turned around so that the target faced her back. She kept her eyes glued to the man as she prepared her hand with the dagger in her petite, slender fingers. She twirled the weapon around, somehow managing not to cut off any of her fingers and in the next moment her hand swung and the dagger flew behind her back. Right into the middle of the target with such force that it stuck halfway into the wall and brought all other blades out of the wood so they fell down to the ground.

Everything in the room had fallen to silence shortly just as the dagger hit the wall. The brawls stopped and the drunkards set their mugs aside just to come and see what was going on. The men who stood around in the circle dropped their jaws in awe and for a few moments just glared between the target on the wall and the woman who seemed to be far from taken aback after her victory. She just placed one of those wicked smiles across her lips and raised one of her shoulder as if saying that it was not a big deal. The men began to applause, some whistled and some laughed. But once the gull had silenced a tad bit, the bravest ones formed a line of those who would dare to stand against Ishtar for the title of the best dagger thrower.

While the match continued for at least an hour, the upper deck was completely empty. Azazel, had noticed his crew to be missing a few minutes ago, but he was too busy describing the plan of things to Mr. Kook to be angry with them at their tardiness. Though then once some more time had passed and Azazel had finished his talk with Kook, he was more than furious to see nobody of his crew at their workstations. He quickly raised his eyes to make sure they were sailing in the right direction and to his demise he noticed the sun beginning to set low. In his experience as a ship captain or even simply a sailor, Azazel had noticed that it was best to keep the crew’s moral and rest high. So every day at the hour when the sun was the highest he would give his crew an hour of rest, on conditions that there is no storm heading their way, nothing urgent to be done, and of course that they would be back within the said amount of time. And the crew knew perfectly well that it was best not to wake the Devil. Though he looked quite in control of his emotions, anger was clearly read across his features in his frown that added wrinkles to his looks and the deepened color of his amber eyes. Feeling his knuckled turning white against the wheel, he released it and began to descend the stairs towards the hatch in the floor.

Once down in the inner deck the man was even more surprised. It was as if his ship had suddenly turned into a ghost, with only the noise of jolly, drunk voices somewhere at the very end of the hallway proving Azazel’s thoughts wrong. Angrily, Azazel passed through the hallway in a few quick long strides. The door was not even closed as it usually had been as he entered the room. Not even the Cabin Boy noticed his captain’s presence. Azazel cocked a brow, though a harsh frown still rested upon his wrinkles as he began to walk towards the crowd. His arms folded across his chest and the irritancy could not have been more shown than it was once Azazel stepped as close to the group as he could and still was not noticed. The final straw was a soft and jolly female laughter, which he supposed came from the heart of the group. Furiously, the man dropped his hand down to where the holster of his pistol resided on the side of his thigh. In one quick motion he pulled the weapon out, and pointed it at the ceiling, though then before his finger could find the trigger he stopped, knowing that he will regret a hole in his ship later. Though the temptation to shoot was bad the man moved his hand and sent the bullet flying into an oil lamp that hung from the ceiling in the corner of the room. As expected, the man immediately turned their heads and finally noticed their boss in the room. However not all people in the room froze with fear to breath. As Ishtar turned, she released a dagger that dug into the pillar behind Azazel’s back, brushing its blade only a mere inch away from the man’s cheekbone.

“Whoops.” She murmured with a dramatically apologetic smile across her lips before she cocked a brow and crossed her arms around her breasts. “It slipped.” She purred out humorously as she leaned upon the little end table where the daggers were placed. A few men whistled but as soon as they felt the cold shivers run up their spines from the way Azazel smiled at the woman, almost as if he would kill her in the next moment, they silenced and many made a few steps back freeing the space.

“Sure it did, love.” The man spoke with an even and seemingly calm voice as he dug the dagger out of the pillar and began to step towards Ishtar, and at that moment even she felt the chill, though she did not show it with an extremely efficient poker face placed upon her features. With each step, the tension in the room became denser and denser; nobody dared to speak but the two of them. As soon as Azazel was, only a short distance from her, with one hand he leaned upon the table behind her while with the other he twirled the dagger between his fingers with impressive elegance. “I thought we spoke about this, dear,” He began slowly, without even a hint of humor along the notes of his voice as he watched the dagger move between his fingers. However, as he turned his gaze to Isha a wickedly handsome and dangerous smile crossed his features. “You don’t throw daggers at my head.” Just as she accidentally let the dagger slip a few moments ago, he allowed it to leave his fingers and fly right into the heart of the target drawn into the wood of the wall. After that, he had turned his head to look at the men with a harsh expression and barked out. “Go back to your stations, ye’ seadogs! An’ remain there until ye’ can no longer see your own hands in the dark!” Though his tone was hard, the man smiled and even laughed before they saluted and left the room.

Lucinda first looked at Azazel, then at the men who had quickly left the room, then at Ishtar. The woman turned her head at her and rolled her eyes, smiling, as if she said a sour comment about Azazel but once he noticed that he simply grabbed her chin with his fingers and rotated her head back so that she looked him straight in the eyes. Lucinda took that as a cue to leave, as she felt her cheeks slightly burn with color. She murmured something out quietly under her breath and dashed out of the room saying that she will make sure “the sails… are uhm… don’t have holes in ‘em”.

As soon as the room was empty, the silence had fallen between them. From the moment they were alone, all their interactions turned into one very, very hot stare game. Slowly even the smirks left their faces, leaving only the light from their eyes to interact. While hers shined with the blues of the deepest oceans, his gave off a color of fire as his ambers lighten up with a wild and vivid lust. Wondering what the colors would create if mixed, Azazel carefully began to pull closer towards her, and it seemed even their breaths synchronized up together in a perfect harmony. Only a breath away, that is how close their lips were from touching, and the man would have crossed than short distance if only Ishtar did not turn away her head to look at the plate with dagger beside her hip.

“Let’s play.” She’d asked with a wicked smile across her lips, and Azazel chuckled softly, and nuzzled the skin underneath her ear with his nose as his lips did not find hers. Though then he rose his head and looked at the daggers at her side with a smirk that almost mirrored hers.

“Why is it always about the game with you, dear?” His hand rose and he brushed a lock of her ashen hair out of the way and she turned her eyes back towards him to look him in the eye. Her hands rose and she cupped his face with her tender fingers. One group of fingers slowly slid off his cheek and lowered to his lips where they remained as she spoke.

“It’s a cheap thrill.” She moved her lips closer to his, and kissed him through her fingers, a moment before she escaped from the cage made by his hands and stood to her feet walking to the target to pull out the daggers and place them back onto the platter.

“I only wish you’d get bored of it someday.” He said it rather to himself than to her with a sigh, but it seemed that she heard and turned her head slightly chuckling. He looked at her for a moment before pushing off the little table and stepping beside the mark drawn on the floor. Soon after Ishtar was done with the daggers, she had joined him by his side.

She shot first and surprisingly enough the dagger flew somewhere alongside the first inner ring, though it was still a little far from the middle. Little did Azazel know that her hands actually shook slightly. It was his entire fault, though she would refuse to admit it. The heat from his body, the texture of his lips on her fingers and that look which she swore made her bones feel like they were made of a pudding. Of course, from a side, even he could not have seen just how much his touch made her knees give up and the million little tiny shivers run down her spine and warm her core, making her insides clench in sweet need. It was only around that man that she felt that way, even though she had plenty of men to compare him with, and she for sure was not some young virgin who yearned to be touched, so even a thought of showing him how weak she was before him did not cross her mind.

They played, their blades hitting the target almost always on the same distance from the circle, though as the game continued they began to care less and less and that distance stretched out before the daggers simply stopped hitting the target whatsoever. By the end both of them stopped even looking at the target to see where they would need to shoot, they just threw the knives carelessly at the wall.

“Fuck games.” Unable to ignore the magnetizing force between them, Azazel cussed and in few quick strides crossed the distance separating them. Without waiting much longer, in a dominating grasp he captured Isha’s lips with his own. She did not stop him either and curled her hands around his neck while her fingers dug into his charcoal hair. His strong hands quickly found their way to her thighs and pulling the woman up against him and into the air so that she completely relied on him to keep her from falling. Truth be told, her feet would not have managed to keep her standing much longer anyways. With Ishtar in his arms, Azazel walked to the nearest wall and pretty much pressed her into the wooden surface using maybe a little more force than he intended to as the woman’s lips left his for a moment to release a painful whelp. Of course, he did apologize by tracing his lips down to her neck and nibbling on the sensitive skin causing the woman to muffle down her moan. Though a moment later he stopped and with a groan looked back slightly.

“Not here,” With irritancy in his voice he said, and watched the door to the room immediately close as his eyes fell upon the little gap between it and its frame. They were being watched but it was a given in a situation such as this one. The woman who still resided in his arms giggled brightly and he guessed whether he cared that their encounter would be seen or not. Eventually he groaned, which meant that he cared too much for his team not to see Ishtar’s naked body. She slowly slid down to the floor, although kept her hands entwined around his neck for a few moments as their eyes spoke. A short few seconds later, they came to a mutual conclusion and smiled to each other. Isha slid her hands down his chest before Azazel took one of her hands in his and pulled her towards the door.

“Let me show you the captain’s cabin, milady.” He murmured with a smirk on his lips for which received a roll from Ishtar’s eyes and her bright smile.

“As long as rum is a part of our excursion, I’m in.”

 

* * *

 

 

Driven by passion, it took them only a few minutes to reach the captain’s cabin. It even took them longer than they expected it to, but they could not resist making a few stops in the hallways where they clung back to each other and fought against the lust that melted their skins into one. Eventually, as the door behind them closed as they entered the captain’s cabin, not a second passed before they were back all over each other. Azazel quickly strode across the very short distance there was and immediately locked his hand around one of Ishtar’s wrist as he used it to haul her body towards his. As Ishtar stumbled towards him, moved by the unexpected force, her nipples brushed against his chest even through all the layers of clothing that she wore.

The man inhaled sharply, and while one of his hands still imprisoned one of the woman’s he used the other to cup her chin and bring her gaze to his. “We’ll skip the part where I seduce you.” He whispered, but he had no idea just how breathtaking his intent look into her eyes was. Just by that look, she was already seduced a hundred times. Slowly he let go of his grasp on her hand, instead threaded his fingers through her silky pale blonde hair, and cradled the side of her head. She looked up at him from underneath her eyelashes and smiled softly. As soon as his lips fell down on hers, she parted her lips and slipped her tongue out to meet his. While he was engaged with the dance of her tongues, Isha reached up and linked her hands behind his neck, pressing her body against his. A sweet tremble passed through her body and elicited a predatory growl from the man once he felt it and he deepened the kiss even further. While one of his hands still held her chin, he moved another away from her hand and down the side of her body to her waist only to move it up again, this time snaking it up her stomach to the upper ties of her corset. Once his fingers reached the cordages, where a knot has been made, he yanked on them roughly, causing the woman to gasp for air for a moment before the corset gave up and fell to the floor. Without wasting another second, the man trailed his hand down her thigh and underneath the fabric of her dress that without the corset loosely hugged her curves until his hand cupped her breast.

The woman reacted with a muffled moan into his mouth as she felt his thumb brush across her nipple, firstly as a tease, but a second time with more pressure applied to it. Though the man was satisfied to find the small bulges hard and aching to be touched. After another, more soundly moan, the man released her mouth, breaking the kiss with a smirk across his lips and nuzzled her neck with his nose before beginning to suck on the skin just a tad bit away from her abnormally quick beating pulse, as he worked his way down to where her neck joined with her shoulder. Isha moaned once again, and arched her body into Azazel’s. She gasped as her knees bent under the painfully sweet tingling, which she felt between her legs and the feeling of his arousal making its presence known to the naked skin on her hip. Finally, his hands, which held her chin, lowered down, only to trace her arm up and down, causing tiny little shivers to appear on the path he left until his hand slid off and began to peal the little elements of her armor off her body.

Once he was done with the visible weaponry, he proceeded with his hand to her inner thigh. She moaned slightly though smirked to herself and to him one he raised his head from her neck to look her in the eye. With their eyes intact, he smirked and pulled a dagger from the little hidden sheath throwing it at a pillar behind her back. She rolled her eyes but he could not have seen it since he plopped his lips back to the pit of her neck and slightly sucked on the skin, leaving a pale red mark on the place f his lips before he began to plant his kisses lower and lower. As if teasing her, he did not raise the tunic off her torso and she could only feel his kisses through the cotton, and even so, the sensation was intense. Once at her chest, his lips first planted his kisses down the visible fragment of her skin along her sternum, then moved to her breasts and she moaned sweetly once his lips circled around her nipple. His teeth latched onto the hard nub and pulled, she felt an answering pull in her core and her hands immediately fell to his shoulder as she dug her fingernails into his flesh.

He hardly missed a beat before both his hands fell to the back of her thighs and pulled the woman against his chest and his mouth returned to hers for the time being as he carried her towards the bed with surprisingly messy sheets. Once only a step away from the bed, he slid his hands up to her waist and with an incredible force threw her on the sheets. Although her lean body hit the mattress quite harshly and the impact traveled painfully throughout her insides, Ishtar giggled and propped herself up with her elbow. She pushed her weight to one side of her body while she extended the other hand and scratched the air slightly, luring the man in closer to her. She bit down the smirk resting on her reddened lips and the man stretched his lips in a wickedly handsome smile. Those smiles should not be legal, but once again, he was a pirate and it more than fit him completely. Ishtar felt as if she was being naughty, while doing something that was prohibited, falling for the wickedly handsome smile that is. The man moved slowly, teasingly, as he carefully pealed his clothes off his shoulder until he only wore his breeches and, his hat.

With that, same breathtaking smirk taking over his features once again the man slowly knelt on the mattress, placed his hat aside so that it would not be touched and crawled over the woman until his crotch was pressed into hers and both her thighs held his hips tightly in place with her feet entwined right across his buttocks. Ishtar, still biting her lips, brought her hands down her body, teasingly brushing her fingers across her breasts, which caused them to slightly bounce as she released them. Her fingers tried to get the hem of her tunic, but Azazel was quicker. He already had the cotton gathered in his hands and all it required from Ishtar was to help him pull it over her head. Once off her body, the man threw the fabric somewhere to the side, leaving Ishtar to lie on the bed sheet with a single little triangle covering her groin.

It was not too long before Azazel set his mouth back at her breast, though this time taking the other breast in his hand and rolling the nipple between his thumb and finger. Her breath almost instantly became erratic and her mouth went dry as she moaned, it seemed more that she had gasped for air. But Azazel decided that the sweet torture through which he was already putting her was not enough and traced his fingers down her stomach until they went under the fabric of her panties and easily found the aching mound. Ishtar jerked up, pressing her body to his shortly before falling back onto the mattress with another moan. While his hands made sure to bring her body on the edge between losing her sanity and falling into pleasure, her hands rose up on the sheets as she dug her fingers into the sheets as if it would have stopped her nails from scraping the tender skin on her palms. First he brushed his hand up and down her, and smirked into her skin once he felt just how wet only his touch had made her, then he parted her folds dipping a finger into her wetness that had pooled around her core. While his long finger entered her and curled slightly to stroke the walls before exiting as he picked up the speed, his thumb alternatively pressed hardly on the little nub that caused her to wriggle her hips against his touch.

Ishtar was surprised. Something was building up inside her as she felt the grasp of tension weaving around his fingers as he worked up the speed, when, without warning, the damn broke and the woman quivered, digging her hands even harder into the sheets and arching her back towards him to ease the tension. Even her toes curled uncontrollably as she pressed her thighs against his hips as the wave of pleasure traveled across her body. Even after orgasm, the man did not pull out his fingers, he simply stoked her most intimate place softly, almost as in caress, as he gentled her and brought her back down from the sharp climax.

Slowly the woman relaxed her curled up fingers and just breathed before she softly cupped his face with her still trembling hands and pulled him away from her breasts to make him look her in the eye. It was not a surprise however that his eyes were dark with passion as she looked into them, the pupils dilated almost to the point where his brightly burning ambers looked almost black. Then she smirked and pulled him towards her, kissing him hard, taking his own breath away just as he did to her a moment ago, like a siren, pulling him slowly into the depths of passion. Once she released his lips, she trailed hers up his jaw to the spot just underneath the lobe of his ear where she planted a little kiss before whispering into his ear. “Thank you.” She purred out, and finished her little message with her tongue brushing against the rim of his ear.

“The pleasure is mine,” He’d whisper back, and pulled away with a smirk across his lips, standing back onto his knees. With the elegance of a wild panther, he knelt down and with his teeth hooked upon the rim of her panties before he ripped them apart and threw them in the general direction as her shirt. The woman laughed quietly and rose her hands to lay them on his chest before she caressed her way down, slightly scratching on his skin to draw the little seamless pale red lines down to his abdomen where she brought her hands around to his back to continue her path of discovery. Shyly she brushed her nails across the very bottom of his back, just where his buttocks would start if only he was not wearing his breeches.

With disappointment, she raised her eyes off his abdomen and looked him in the eye. He however only folded his hands across his chest with a dominating smirk. Her hands trailed back to the front of the man, and she smirked back at him as she slowly began to raise into a slightly sit only to pull his belt off of his hips and push the button holding his breeches together apart. The piece of garment however did not hurry to slide down his frame and only gave her a small peak of his pubic hair through the little gap. Though she smirked and trailed her hands back to his arse, and slowly fell back onto the mattress, bringing the man with her only, he held himself from collapsing on top of her with his elbows pushed into the sheets.

Although she knew, her way around and simply traced both her hands around again and carefully slid them under the fabric of his breeches. The man groaned as he felt her fingers firmly squeeze the flesh. Ishtar herself let out a muffled moan into her lip from feeling his godly shaped ass which felt almost divine to the touch. Keeping one hand still in hold of his butt, she let the other wander to the front to investigate. And just as she remembered, her hand felt tiny as she brushed the tips of her fingers down his length and up. Though it was her time to play then.

She bit down on her lip once again, and as thought, it did the job and lured the man in as he kissed her deep and powerful. Her hands immediately rose to his shoulder and before he could manage to understand what was going on, she hooked herself around him and motioned them both to a flip. The man groaned as his head hit the mattress, but even more so when the woman lowered herself down on his crotch. With his pulsating manhood, even through the barrier of the breeches that he hated to be there then, he could feel her heated and wet core. Teasingly, she curled her fingers around his wrists, keeping him pinned to the mattress with her weight and slightly wriggled around as if to get a more comfortable position, but he knew it was done only to arouse him even more. While he moaned out in the torturing pleasure, he managed to frown at her. However, she had only smirked and began to move her hips back and forth across his crotch, imitating the movements his manhood sliding in and out of her.

It lasted for only a few short moments since even Ishtar, being a skilled temptress could not resist the fire burning inside of her and the man underneath. Her hands removed themselves from his as she reached for the hem of his pants. Without waiting another moment she dug her fingers underneath the fabric only to pull out his penis and prop it against her entry. Firstly, she only moved her hand up and down his length but the moment later, she mounted him, and lowered herself down, allowing him push inside her to the very hilt. His hands instantly moved to her love handles as he began to slowly rise and lower her down his length, carefully building up the momentum.

Ishtar moaned out soundly into the air and probed her hand on his chest afraid she would fall if she did not have the support from his strong body one way or another. She felt stretched, filled and taken to the very meaning of those words. As with such perfect connection between their bodies, the tension that was there only a few minutes ago began to escalate quickly as they entered a perfect rhythm. While Azazel pondered into her mercilessly, Ishtar rolled her hips forth and back to deepen his entry. Soon later, both of them embraced the pulsating waves of pleasure once they came. Azazel kept thrusting and then he began to come inside her, stretching her even further quite surprisingly. The sensation of each hot burst, as it bumped into the woman caused her to tremble weakly. As soon as the tide subsided, Ishtar fell on his chest unable to keep herself upright any longer and they breathed in sync, waiting for the air to come back to their lungs. Azazel exited her carefully and with the same caution slowly shifted them to the head of the bed, with Ishtar still resting upon him, though then at his side rather than on top of him. Her hands curled around his middle as he pulled dark blanket over their bodies and propped his head on the pillows at the headboard.

“Give me a few minutes,” Ishtar began through her erratic breathing with a smile across her lips as she pulled her head up to look at him from under her lashes. The man raised his hand and brushed his finger into her hair lovingly as she continued to speak. “and we’ll do a round two.”


End file.
